lzw3 0.4

Compressor and decompressor for arbitrary files that use LZW algorithm

Compressor and decompressor that uses LZW algorithm written in Python3.

REQUIREMENTS

Requires at least Python 3.5.

INSTALLATION

pip install lzw3

USAGE

Two scripts will be installed in your local binary path (e.g. /home/user/.local/bin): compress and uncompress. If you want to invoke these scripts, ensure that your $PATH contains the python binary path Note that this compressor just compress regular files (i.e. doesn’t create an archive such as .zip or .tar.gz). Anyhow, directory can still be compressed using the option: -r

Compression

The compression phases replaces the original files with the compressed ones, appending the extension “.Z”

Compress a list of files:

python3 -m lzw3.compressor doc1.txt doc2.txt

Compress a directory recursively:

python3 -m lzw3.compressor -r /home/user/Docs/Project

Alternatively you can user the compress script as follows:

compress doc1.txt doc2.txt

Options

-r
    Recursively compress the files inside the directories
    within the given file list.
    If not specified, directories in the file list are skipped.

-v
    Prints information about the handled files and the percentage of
    saved space for each compressed file.

-t
    Prints the time spent for compress each file.

-k
    Keeps the original files instead of replace those with the
    compressed ones.

-f
    Force to compress and keep the compressed file, even if the size
    of the compressed file is higher than the size of the original one.

-d
    Prints debug messages.

Decompression

The decompression phases replaces the compressed files (with extension “.Z”) with the uncompressed ones.

Decompress a list of files:

python3 -m lzw3.decompressor doc1.txt.Z doc2.txt.Z

Decompress a directory recursively:

python3 -m lzw3.decompressor -r /home/user/Docs/Project

Alternatively you can user the uncompress script as follows:

uncompress doc1.txt.Z doc2.txt.Z

Options

-r
    Recursively decompress the files inside the directories
    within the given file list.
    If not specified, directories in the file list are skipped.

-v
    Prints information about the handled files.

-t
    Prints the time spent for decompress each file.

-k
    Keeps the decompressed files after the decompression.

-f
    Force to decompress the files even if the file name
    doesn't end with ".Z".

-d
    Prints debug messages.

TESTING

The project comes with few unit tests, both on static or random generated files. To run the tests use:

python3 setup.py test

LICENSE

LZW3 is MIT licensed.