NAME Compress::LZF - extremely leight-weight Lev-Zimpel-Free compression SYNOPSIS use Compress::LZF; $compressed = compress $uncompressed_data; $original_data = decompress $compressed; DESCRIPTION LZF is an extremely fast (not that much slower than a pure memcpy) compression algorithm. It is ideal for applications where you want to save *some* space but not at the cost of speed. It is ideal for repetitive data as well. The module is self-contained and very small (no large library to be pulled in). It is also free, so there should be no problems incoporating this module into commercial programs. I have no idea wether any patents in any countries apply to this algorithm, but at the moment it is believed that it is free from any patents. FUNCTIONS $compressed = compress $uncompressed Try to compress the given string as quickly and as much as possible. In the worst case, the string can enlarge by 1 byte, but that should be the absolute exception. You can expect a 45% compression ratio on large, binary strings. $decompressed = decompress $compressed Uncompress the string (compressed by "compress") and return the original data. Decompression errors can result in either broken data (there is no checksum kept) or a runtime error. SEE ALSO Other Compress::* modules, especially Compress::LZV1 (an older, less speedy module that guarentees only 1 byte overhead worst case) and Compress::Zlib. http://liblzf.plan9.de/ AUTHOR This perl extension and the underlying liblzf were written by Marc Lehmann (See also http://liblzf.plan9.de/). BUGS