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From: ronald@ecl014.UUCP (Ronald van Eijck)
Newsgroups: comp.compression
Subject: Re: Proposal for data compression interface standard.
Message-ID: <ronald.3974@ecl014.UUCP>
Date: 22 Jun 91 15:59:55 GMT
References: <858@spam.ua.oz>
Organization: R&R Software
Lines: 56

In article <858@spam.ua.oz> ross@spam.ua.oz.au (Ross Williams) writes:
>PROPOSAL FOR A DATA COMPRESSION INTERFACE STANDARD
>==================================================
>Author : Ross Williams.
>Date   : 20-Jun-1991.
>
>There  are  now so  many  data  compression  algorithms with  so  many
>different characteristics, written in  so many different languages, on
>so  many  different   systems  that  there  is   pressing  need  for a
>standardized  data  compression algorithm  interface.  A  standardized
>interface would yield the following benefits:
>
>   * The  standard  interface  would  allow programmers  to  code  for
>    generic data compression and then  quickly and easily swap between
>    various algorithms  until they find  the one best suited  for thir
>    application. Writing glue  code may be trivial, but if  one has to
>    do it twenty times, it can become prohibitively time consuming.
>
>   * A standard interface would  assist those cataloging and comparing
>    algorithms.
>
>   * A  standard  interface  would  encourage the  designers  of  data
>    compression algorithms to provide conforming implementations.
>
>   * A standard interface would make  it easy for programmers to write
>    programs that select  from a range of  data compression algorithms
>    at run time.
>

How about this:

You have a standard command 'archive' (or whatever) with a standard syntax
and a standard file format. in this format the filename etc are stored
and there is an idenification code for every compression scheme.
Now you have shared libraries that do the actual encoding/decoding. This
would be a good solution for everybody.
- The user has to know only one command syntax to do his work.
- Archive shells do not have to support a lot of different syntaxes.
- The programmer of a future compression scheme only has to make a library
  with the encoding/decoding routines.

Ofcourse there this standard code has to be ported to a number of platforms
but since almost every archive programm is ported anyway this is not much
of a problem.

Identification codes have to be obtained from some central point where all
the codes are registered.

Just my $.02,

--
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  |  Ronald van Eijck                  {eunet!}hp4nl!cbmnlux!ecl014!ronald  |
  |                                                                         |
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