Compress::Bzip2 - Interface to Bzip2 compression library

    use Compress::Bzip2 qw(:all :constant :utilities :gzip);

    ($bz, $status) = bzdeflateInit( [PARAMS] ) ;
    ($out, $status) = $bz->bzdeflate($buffer) ;

    ($bz, $status) = bzinflateInit( [PARAMS] ) ;
    ($out, $status) = $bz->bzinflate($buffer) ;

    ($out, $status) = $bz->bzflush() ;
    ($out, $status) = $bz->bzclose() ;

    $dest = memBzip($source);
        alias compress
    $dest = memBunzip($source);
        alias decompress

    $bz = Compress::Bzip2->new( [PARAMS] );

    $bz = bzopen($filename or filehandle, $mode);
        alternate, with $bz created by new():
    $bz->bzopen($filename or filehandle, $mode);

    $bytesread = $bz->bzread($buffer [,$size]) ;
    $bytesread = $bz->bzreadline($line);
    $byteswritten = $bz->bzwrite($buffer [,$limit]);
    $errstring = $bz->bzerror(); 
    $status = $bz->bzeof();
    $status = $bz->bzflush();
    $status = $bz->bzclose() ;

    $status = $bz->bzsetparams( $param => $setting );

    $bz->total_in() ;
    $bz->total_out() ;

    $verstring = $bz->bzversion();

    $Compress::Bzip2::bzerrno

The Compress::Bzip2 module provides a Perl interface to the Bzip2 compression library (see AUTHOR for details about where to get Bzip2). A relevant subset of the functionality provided by Bzip2 is available in Compress::Bzip2.

All string parameters can either be a scalar or a scalar reference.

The module can be split into two general areas of functionality, namely in-memory compression/decompression and read/write access to bzip2 files. Each of these areas will be discussed separately below.

A number of functions are supplied in bzlib for reading and writing bzip2 files. Unfortunately, most of them are not suitable. So, this module provides another interface, built over top of the low level bzlib methods.

This function returns an object which is used to access the other bzip2 methods. The mode parameter is used to specify both whether the file is opened for reading or writing, with r or w respectively. If a reference to an open filehandle is passed in place of the filename, it better be positioned to the start of a compression/decompression sequence.

Create a Compress::Bzip2 object. Optionally, provide compression/decompression parameters as a keyword => setting list. See bzsetparams() for a description of the parameters.

This is bzopen, but it uses an object previously created by the new method. Other than that, it is identical to the above bzopen. Reads $size bytes from the compressed file into $buffer. If $size is not specified, it will default to 4096. If the scalar $buffer is not large enough, it will be extended automatically. Returns the number of bytes actually read. On EOF it returns 0 and in the case of an error, -1. Reads the next line from the compressed file into $line. Returns the number of bytes actually read. On EOF it returns 0 and in the case of an error, -1. It IS legal to intermix calls to bzread and bzreadline. At this time bzreadline ignores the variable CW$/ (CW$INPUT_RECORD_SEPARATOR or CW$RS when CWEnglish is in use). The end of a line is denoted by the C character CW'\n'. Writes the contents of $buffer to the compressed file. Returns the number of bytes actually written, or 0 on error. If CW$limit is given and non-zero, then only that many bytes from CW$buffer will be written. Flushes all pending output to the compressed file. Works identically to the zlib function it interfaces to. Note that the use of bzflush can degrade compression. Returns CWBZ_OK if $flush is CWBZ_FINISH and all output could be flushed. Otherwise the bzlib error code is returned. Refer to the bzlib documentation for the valid values of $flush. Returns 1 if the end of file has been detected while reading the input file, otherwise returns 0.

Closes the compressed file. Any pending data is flushed to the file before it is closed.

Change settings for the deflate stream CW$bz. The list of the valid options is shown below. Options not specified will remain unchanged.

-verbosity

Defines the verbosity level. Valid values are 0 through 4, The default is CW-verbosity => 0.

-blockSize100k

For bzip object opened for stream deflation or write. Defines the buffering factor of compression method. The algorithm buffers all data until the buffer is full, then it flushes all the data out. Use -blockSize100k to specify the size of the buffer. Valid settings are 1 through 9, representing a blocking in multiples of 100k. Note that each such block has an overhead of leading and trailing synchronization bytes. bzip2 recovery uses this information to pull useable data out of a corrupted file. A streaming application would probably want to set the blocking low.

-workFactor

For bzip object opened for stream deflation or write. The workFactor setting tells the deflation algorithm how much work to invest to compensate for repetitive data. workFactor may be a number from 0 to 250 inclusive. The default setting is 30. See the bzip documentation for more information.

-small

For bzip object opened for stream inflation or read. small may be 0 or 1. Set CWsmall to one to use a slower, less memory intensive algorithm.

Returns the bzlib error message or number for the last operation associated with $bz. The return value will be the bzlib error number when used in a numeric context and the bzlib error message when used in a string context. The bzlib error number constants, shown below, are available for use.

  BZ_CONFIG_ERROR
  BZ_DATA_ERROR
  BZ_DATA_ERROR_MAGIC
  BZ_FINISH
  BZ_FINISH_OK
  BZ_FLUSH
  BZ_FLUSH_OK
  BZ_IO_ERROR
  BZ_MAX_UNUSED
  BZ_MEM_ERROR
  BZ_OK
  BZ_OUTBUFF_FULL
  BZ_PARAM_ERROR
  BZ_RUN
  BZ_RUN_OK
  BZ_SEQUENCE_ERROR
  BZ_STREAM_END
  BZ_UNEXPECTED_EOF

The $bzerrno scalar holds the error code associated with the most recent bzip2 routine. Note that unlike BIbzerror(), the error is not associated with a particular file. As with BIbzerror() it returns an error number in numeric context and an error message in string context. Unlike BIbzerror() though, the error message will correspond to the bzlib message when the error is associated with bzlib itself, or the UNIX error message when it is not (i.e. bzlib returned CWZ_ERRORNO). As there is an overlap between the error numbers used by bzlib and UNIX, $bzerrno should only be used to check for the presence of an error in numeric context. Use BIbzerror() to check for specific bzlib errors. The bzcat example below shows how the variable can be used safely.

While the 2.x thread forked off of 1.00, another line of development came to a head at 1.03. The 1.03 version worked with bzlib 1.0.2, had improvements to the error handling, single buffer inflate/deflate, a streaming interface to inflate/deflate, and a cpan style test suite. Alias to memBzip, this compresses string, using the optional compression level, 1 through 9, the default being 1. Returns a string containing the compressed data. On error undef is returned.

Alias to memBunzip, this decompresses the data in string, returning a string containing the decompressed data. On error undef is returned.

Alias to bzdeflateInit. In addition to the named parameters documented for bzdeflateInit, the following are accepted:

   -level, alias to -blockSize100k
   -buffer, to set the buffer size.

Alias to bzinflateInit. See bzinflateInit for a description of the parameters. The option -buffer is accepted, but ignored. Add data to be compressed/decompressed. Returns whatever output is available (possibly none, if it's still buffering it), or undef on error. Finish the operation; takes an optional final data string. Whatever is returned completes the output; returns undef on error.

Like the function, but applies to the current object only. Note that errors in a stream object are also returned by the function.

Alias to total_in. Total bytes passed to the stream.

Alias to total_out. Total bytes received from the stream.

Except for the exact state and error numbers, this package presents an interface very much like that given by the Compress::Zlib package. Mostly, if you take the method name, state or error number from Compress::Zlib and replace the g with a b, your code should work.

To make the interoperability even easier, all the Compress::Zlib method names have been used as aliases or cover functions for the bzip2 methods.

Therefore, most code that uses Compress::Zlib should be able to use this package, with a one line change.

Simply change

   $gz = Compress::Zlib::gzopen( "filename", "w" );

to

   $gz = Compress::Bzip2::gzopen( "filename", "w" );

Some of the Compress::Zlib aliases don't return anything useful, like crc32 or adler32, cause bzip2 doesn't do that sort of thing. Alias for bzopen. Alias for bzread. Alias for bzreadline. Alias for bzwrite. Alias for bzflush, with return code translation. Alias for bzclose. Alias for bzeof. Alias for bzerror. This is a no-op. Alias for bzdeflateInit, with return code translation. All OPTS are ignored. Alias for bzdeflate, with return code translation. This is a no-op. Cover function for bzflush or bzclose, depending on CW$flushtype. See the Compress::Zlib documentation for more information. This is a no-op. This is a no-op. Alias for bzinflateInit, with return code translation. All OPTS are ignored. Alias for bzinflate, with return code translation. This is a no-op. This is a no-op. This is a no-op. Alias for memBzip. Alias for memBunzip.

Two high-level functions are provided by bzlib to perform in-memory compression. They are memBzip and memBunzip. Two Perl subs are provided which provide similar functionality.

Compresses $source. If successful it returns the compressed data. Otherwise it returns undef. The buffer parameter can either be a scalar or a scalar reference. Essentially, an in-memory bzip file is created. It creates a minimal bzip header.

Uncompresses $source. If successful it returns the uncompressed data. Otherwise it returns undef. The source buffer can either be a scalar or a scalar reference. The buffer parameter can either be a scalar or a scalar reference. The contents of the buffer parameter are destroyed after calling this function.

The Perl interface will always consume the complete input buffer before returning. Also the output buffer returned will be automatically grown to fit the amount of output available.

Here is a definition of the interface available: Initialises a deflation stream.

If successful, it will return the initialised deflation stream, $d and $status of CWBZ_OK in a list context. In scalar context it returns the deflation stream, $d, only.

If not successful, the returned deflation stream ($d) will be undef and $status will hold the exact bzip2 error code.

The function optionally takes a number of named options specified as CW-Name=>value pairs. This allows individual options to be tailored without having to specify them all in the parameter list.

Here is a list of the valid options:

-verbosity

Defines the verbosity level. Valid values are 0 through 4, The default is CW-verbosity => 0.

-blockSize100k

Defines the buffering factor of compression method. The algorithm buffers all data until the buffer is full, then it flushes all the data out. Use -blockSize100k to specify the size of the buffer. Valid settings are 1 through 9, representing a blocking in multiples of 100k. Note that each such block has an overhead of leading and trailing synchronization bytes. bzip2 recovery uses this information to pull useable data out of a corrupted file. A streaming application would probably want to set the blocking low.

-workFactor

The workFactor setting tells the deflation algorithm how much work to invest to compensate for repetitive data. workFactor may be a number from 0 to 250 inclusive. The default setting is 30. See the bzip documentation for more information.

Here is an example of using the deflateInit optional parameter list to override the default buffer size and compression level. All other options will take their default values.

    bzdeflateInit( -blockSize100k => 1, -verbosity => 1 );

On error, $out will be undef and $status will contain the zlib error code.

In a scalar context bzdeflate will return $out only.

As with the internal buffering of the deflate function in bzip2, it is not necessarily the case that any output will be produced by this method. So don't rely on the fact that $out is empty for an error test. In fact, given the size of bzdeflates internal buffer, with most files it's likely you won't see any output at all until flush or close. Typically used to finish the deflation. Any pending output will be returned via $out. $status will have a value CWBZ_OK if successful.

In a scalar context bzflush will return $out only.

Note that flushing can seriously degrade the compression ratio, so it should only be used to terminate a decompression (using CWBZ_FLUSH) or when you want to create a full flush point (using CWBZ_FINISH).

The allowable values for CWflush_type are CWBZ_FLUSH and CWBZ_FINISH.

For a handle opened for w (bzwrite), the default is CWBZ_FLUSH. For a stream, the default for CWflush_type is CWBZ_FINISH (which is essentially a close and reopen).

It is strongly recommended that you only set the CWflush_type parameter if you fully understand the implications of what it does. See the CWbzip2 documentation for details.

Here is a trivial example of using bzdeflate. It simply reads standard input, deflates it and writes it to standard output.

    use strict ;
    use warnings ;

    use Compress::Bzip2 ;

    binmode STDIN;
    binmode STDOUT;
    my $x = bzdeflateInit()
       or die "Cannot create a deflation stream\n" ;

    my ($output, $status) ;
    while (<>)
    {
        ($output, $status) = $x->bzdeflate($_) ;

        $status == BZ_OK
            or die "deflation failed\n" ;

        print $output ;
    }

    ($output, $status) = $x->bzclose() ;

    $status == BZ_OK
        or die "deflation failed\n" ;

    print $output ;

Here is a definition of the interface: Initialises an inflation stream.

In a list context it returns the inflation stream, $i, and the zlib status code ($status). In a scalar context it returns the inflation stream only.

If successful, $i will hold the inflation stream and $status will be CWBZ_OK.

If not successful, $i will be undef and $status will hold the bzlib.h error code.

The function optionally takes a number of named options specified as CW-Name=>value pairs. This allows individual options to be tailored without having to specify them all in the parameter list.

For backward compatibility, it is also possible to pass the parameters as a reference to a hash containing the name=>value pairs.

The function takes one optional parameter, a reference to a hash. The contents of the hash allow the deflation interface to be tailored.

Here is a list of the valid options:

-small

small may be 0 or 1. Set CWsmall to one to use a slower, less memory intensive algorithm.

-verbosity

Defines the verbosity level. Valid values are 0 through 4, The default is CW-verbosity => 0.

Here is an example of using the bzinflateInit optional parameter.

    bzinflateInit( -small => 1, -verbosity => 1 );

Returns CWBZ_OK if successful and CWBZ_STREAM_END if the end of the compressed data has been successfully reached. If not successful, $out will be undef and $status will hold the bzlib error code.

The CW$buffer parameter is modified by CWbzinflate. On completion it will contain what remains of the input buffer after inflation. This means that CW$buffer will be an empty string when the return status is CWBZ_OK. When the return status is CWBZ_STREAM_END the CW$buffer parameter will contains what (if anything) was stored in the input buffer after the deflated data stream.

This feature is useful when processing a file format that encapsulates a compressed data stream.

Here is an example of using bzinflate.

    use strict ;
    use warnings ;

    use Compress::Bzip2;

    my $x = bzinflateInit()
       or die "Cannot create a inflation stream\n" ;

    my $input = '' ;
    binmode STDIN;
    binmode STDOUT;

    my ($output, $status) ;
    while (read(STDIN, $input, 4096))
    {
        ($output, $status) = $x->bzinflate(\$input) ;

        print $output 
            if $status == BZ_OK or $status == BZ_STREAM_END ;

        last if $status != BZ_OK ;
    }

    die "inflation failed\n"
        unless $status == BZ_STREAM_END ;

Here are some example scripts of using the interface.

  use strict ;
  use warnings ;

  use Compress::Bzip2 ;

  die "Usage: bzcat file...\n" unless @ARGV ;

  my $file ;

  foreach $file (@ARGV) {
    my $buffer ;

    my $bz = bzopen($file, "rb") 
       or die "Cannot open $file: $bzerrno\n" ;

    print $buffer while $bz->bzread($buffer) > 0 ;

    die "Error reading from $file: $bzerrno" . ($bzerrno+0) . "\n" 
       if $bzerrno != BZ_STREAM_END ;

    $bz->bzclose() ;
  }

  use strict ;
  use warnings ;

  use Compress::Bzip2 ;

  die "Usage: bzgrep pattern file...\n" unless @ARGV >= 2;

  my $pattern = shift ;

  my $file ;

  foreach $file (@ARGV) {
    my $bz = bzopen($file, "rb") 
       or die "Cannot open $file: $bzerrno\n" ;

    while ($bz->bzreadline($_) > 0) {
      print if /$pattern/ ;
    }

    die "Error reading from $file: $bzerrno\n" 
      if $bzerrno != Z_STREAM_END ;

    $bz->bzclose() ;
  }

This script, bzstream, does the opposite of the bzcat script above. It reads from standard input and writes a bzip file to standard output.

  use strict ;
  use warnings ;

  use Compress::Bzip2 ;

  binmode STDOUT;       # bzopen only sets it on the fd

  my $bz = bzopen(\*STDOUT, "wb")
     or die "Cannot open stdout: $bzerrno\n" ;

  while (<>) {
    $bz->bzwrite($_) or die "error writing: $bzerrno\n" ;
  }

  $bz->bzclose ;

Use the tags :all, :utilities, :constants, :bzip1 and :gzip.

This exports all the exportable methods.

This exports only the BZ_* constants.

This exports the Compress::Bzip2 1.x functions, for compatibility.

   compress
   decompress
   compress_init
   decompress_init
   version

These are actually aliases to memBzip and memBunzip.

This gives an interface to the bzip2 methods.

    bzopen
    bzinflateInit
    bzdeflateInit
    memBzip
    memBunzip
    bzip2
    bunzip2
    bzcat
    bzlibversion
    $bzerrno

This gives compatibility with Compress::Zlib.

    gzopen
    gzinflateInit
    gzdeflateInit
    memGzip
    memGunzip
    $gzerrno

All the bzlib constants are automatically imported when you make use of Compress::Bzip2.

  BZ_CONFIG_ERROR
  BZ_DATA_ERROR
  BZ_DATA_ERROR_MAGIC
  BZ_FINISH
  BZ_FINISH_OK
  BZ_FLUSH
  BZ_FLUSH_OK
  BZ_IO_ERROR
  BZ_MAX_UNUSED
  BZ_MEM_ERROR
  BZ_OK
  BZ_OUTBUFF_FULL
  BZ_PARAM_ERROR
  BZ_RUN
  BZ_RUN_OK
  BZ_SEQUENCE_ERROR
  BZ_STREAM_END
  BZ_UNEXPECTED_EOF

The documentation for zlib, bzip2 and Compress::Zlib.

Rob Janes, <arjay at cpan.org>

Copyright (C) 2005 by Rob Janes

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.3 or, at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.

The Compress::Bzip2 module was originally written by Gawdi Azem azemgi@rupert.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de.

The first Compress::Bzip2 module was written by Gawdi Azem azemgi@rupert.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de. It provided an interface to the in memory inflate and deflate routines.

Compress::Bzip2 was subsequently passed on to Marco Carnut kiko@tempest.com.br who shepharded it through to version 1.03, a set of changes which included upgrades to handle bzlib 1.0.2, and improvements to the in memory inflate and deflate routines. The streaming interface and error information were added by David Robins dbrobins@davidrobins.net.

Version 2 of Compress::Bzip2 is due to Rob Janes, of arjay@cpan.org. This release is intended to give an interface close to that of Compress::Zlib. It's development forks from 1.00, not 1.03, so the streaming interface is not the same as that in 1.03, although apparently compatible as it passes the 1.03 test suite.

See the Changes file.

2.00 Second public release of Compress::Bzip2.