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Author: craigbarnes

README.md

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+Description
+-----------
+
+`compress.deflatelua` is a library implementing [DEFLATE], as well as
+[zlib] and [gzip] decompression in pure [Lua].
+
+Example usage
+-------------
+
+    ./gunziplua lua-5.1.4.tar.gz
+
+Performance
+-----------
+
+It's somewhat slow (as expected).  To decompress `lua-5.1.4.tar.gz`, it
+takes about 9 seconds with CRC-checking enabled (4 with LuaJIT 1.x) or
+3 seconds with CRC checking disabled (2 with LuaJIT 1.x).
+
+Rationale
+---------
+
+Possible reasons for this module include:
+
+1. for pedagogical reasons
+2. to benchmark Lua
+3. to bootstrap applications like LuaRocks/LuaDist
+   that might not have a precompiled copy of gunzip, and
+4. because [DEFLATE] has been implemented in other languages too,
+   including Python, Perl, and Lisp.
+
+Status
+------
+
+It should be robust and there are no known bugs. It successfully
+decompresses gzip files but there is currently no compressor implementation.
+
+Dependencies
+------------
+
+* [digest.crc32lua] - CRC-32 checksum implemented in pure Lua
+* [bit.numberlua] - bitwise operations implemented in pure Lua as numbers
+  (note: if using a native bitwise operation library, you can replace
+  `bxor` as appropriate in `digest.crc32lua` and omit this library)
+* [pythonic.optparse] - command-line processing resembling the Python
+  optparse module
+
+Conventions
+-----------
+
+The modules above follow a somewhat Perl CPAN-like naming convention.
+Compare to [`Compress::Zlib::Perl`], [`Digest::CRC32`] and the `Bit::`
+modules.
+
+Author
+------
+
+David Manura.  See COPYRIGHT file.
+
+
+[DEFLATE]: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1951
+[zlib]: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1950
+[gzip]: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1952
+[Lua]: http://www.lua.org/
+[digest.crc32lua]: http://github.com/davidm/lua-digest-crc32lua
+[bit.numberlua]: http://github.com/davidm/lua-bit-numberlua
+[pythonic.optparse]: http://github.com/davidm/lua-pythonic-optparse
+[`Compress::Zlib::Perl`]: http://search.cpan.org/~nwclark/Compress-Zlib-Perl/Perl.pm
+[`Digest::CRC32`]: http://search.cpan.org/~fays/Digest-Crc32/Crc32.pm