Chris@4
|
1
|
Chris@4
|
2 Overview
|
Chris@4
|
3 ========
|
Chris@4
|
4
|
Chris@4
|
5 This directory contains an update to the ZLib interface unit,
|
Chris@4
|
6 distributed by Borland as a Delphi supplemental component.
|
Chris@4
|
7
|
Chris@4
|
8 The original ZLib unit is Copyright (c) 1997,99 Borland Corp.,
|
Chris@4
|
9 and is based on zlib version 1.0.4. There are a series of bugs
|
Chris@4
|
10 and security problems associated with that old zlib version, and
|
Chris@4
|
11 we recommend the users to update their ZLib unit.
|
Chris@4
|
12
|
Chris@4
|
13
|
Chris@4
|
14 Summary of modifications
|
Chris@4
|
15 ========================
|
Chris@4
|
16
|
Chris@4
|
17 - Improved makefile, adapted to zlib version 1.2.1.
|
Chris@4
|
18
|
Chris@4
|
19 - Some field types from TZStreamRec are changed from Integer to
|
Chris@4
|
20 Longint, for consistency with the zlib.h header, and for 64-bit
|
Chris@4
|
21 readiness.
|
Chris@4
|
22
|
Chris@4
|
23 - The zlib_version constant is updated.
|
Chris@4
|
24
|
Chris@4
|
25 - The new Z_RLE strategy has its corresponding symbolic constant.
|
Chris@4
|
26
|
Chris@4
|
27 - The allocation and deallocation functions and function types
|
Chris@4
|
28 (TAlloc, TFree, zlibAllocMem and zlibFreeMem) are now cdecl,
|
Chris@4
|
29 and _malloc and _free are added as C RTL stubs. As a result,
|
Chris@4
|
30 the original C sources of zlib can be compiled out of the box,
|
Chris@4
|
31 and linked to the ZLib unit.
|
Chris@4
|
32
|
Chris@4
|
33
|
Chris@4
|
34 Suggestions for improvements
|
Chris@4
|
35 ============================
|
Chris@4
|
36
|
Chris@4
|
37 Currently, the ZLib unit provides only a limited wrapper around
|
Chris@4
|
38 the zlib library, and much of the original zlib functionality is
|
Chris@4
|
39 missing. Handling compressed file formats like ZIP/GZIP or PNG
|
Chris@4
|
40 cannot be implemented without having this functionality.
|
Chris@4
|
41 Applications that handle these formats are either using their own,
|
Chris@4
|
42 duplicated code, or not using the ZLib unit at all.
|
Chris@4
|
43
|
Chris@4
|
44 Here are a few suggestions:
|
Chris@4
|
45
|
Chris@4
|
46 - Checksum class wrappers around adler32() and crc32(), similar
|
Chris@4
|
47 to the Java classes that implement the java.util.zip.Checksum
|
Chris@4
|
48 interface.
|
Chris@4
|
49
|
Chris@4
|
50 - The ability to read and write raw deflate streams, without the
|
Chris@4
|
51 zlib stream header and trailer. Raw deflate streams are used
|
Chris@4
|
52 in the ZIP file format.
|
Chris@4
|
53
|
Chris@4
|
54 - The ability to read and write gzip streams, used in the GZIP
|
Chris@4
|
55 file format, and normally produced by the gzip program.
|
Chris@4
|
56
|
Chris@4
|
57 - The ability to select a different compression strategy, useful
|
Chris@4
|
58 to PNG and MNG image compression, and to multimedia compression
|
Chris@4
|
59 in general. Besides the compression level
|
Chris@4
|
60
|
Chris@4
|
61 TCompressionLevel = (clNone, clFastest, clDefault, clMax);
|
Chris@4
|
62
|
Chris@4
|
63 which, in fact, could have used the 'z' prefix and avoided
|
Chris@4
|
64 TColor-like symbols
|
Chris@4
|
65
|
Chris@4
|
66 TCompressionLevel = (zcNone, zcFastest, zcDefault, zcMax);
|
Chris@4
|
67
|
Chris@4
|
68 there could be a compression strategy
|
Chris@4
|
69
|
Chris@4
|
70 TCompressionStrategy = (zsDefault, zsFiltered, zsHuffmanOnly, zsRle);
|
Chris@4
|
71
|
Chris@4
|
72 - ZIP and GZIP stream handling via TStreams.
|
Chris@4
|
73
|
Chris@4
|
74
|
Chris@4
|
75 --
|
Chris@4
|
76 Cosmin Truta <cosmint@cs.ubbcluj.ro>
|