source/libs/zziplib/zziplib-0.13.62/docs/zzip-index.htm

   1 <section> <date> created 1.Jun.2000, last updated 09.Feb.2003 </date>
   2 <h2> The Library </h2> Overview
   3
   4 <!--border-->
   5
   6 <!-- 1. section of zzip-zip.html -->
   7
   8 <P>
   9  The <a href="zziplib.html">zziplib library</a> is intentionally
  10  lightweight, it offers the ability to easily extract data from
  11  files archived in a single zip file. Applications can bundle
  12  files into a single zip archive and access them.
  13  The implementation is based only on the (free) subset of
  14  compression with the <a href="http://www.gzip.org/zlib">
  15  zlib algorithm</a> which is actually used by the <tt>zip/unzip</tt> tools.
  16 </P>
  17
  18 <center>
  19  The library allows reading zip archives in a number of ways,
  20 </center><dl>
  21 <dt>archive mode:</dt>
  22 <dd>  reading the zip directory and extracting files from it.
  23       This is the traditional mode as seen with unzip-utilities.
  24       Some extra unzip-utiles for transparent/magic mode are
  25       shipped as&nbsp;well.
  26 </dd>
  27 <dt>replacement mode:</dt>
  28 <dd>  Use ZZIP_FILE / ZZIP_DIR pointers provided by zziplib and
  29       put them to work with routines originally developped to
  30       work with real directories and file handles. The API calls
  31       do follow traditional synopsis from posix/stdio.
  32 </dd>
  33 <dt>transparent mode:</dt>
  34 <dd>  Use replacement handles and allow the open()-calls to
  35       automatically detect when a file is contained in a zip
  36       archive or when it is a real file in the file system.
  37       A filepath can be partly in a real filesystem and partly
  38       within the zip archive when one is seen.
  39 </dd>
  40 <dt> ext magic </dt>
  41 <dd>  Use the same filepath to access either a zipped or real
  42       file - it looks for a real file and there is none then
  43       every subdirectory of the path is checked, a ".zip"
  44       extension appended, and the zipped file transparently
  45       opened. This can speed up dat-file development
  46       dramatically.
  47 </dd>
  48 <dt> io/xor magic </dt>
  49 <dd>  The access to the filesystem can be hooked up - examples
  50       are given for xor obfuscation which is great for game
  51       artwork and AI data. A small intro for SDLrwops usage is
  52       given as well.
  53 </dd>
  54 </dl>
  55 </section>