Re: tlug: "bz2" file format?

[Karl-Max Wagner <karlmax@example.com>]

> Is "bz2" some new compressed format? If so, how do I uncompress it?

Yes. It's the Burrows - Wheeler algorithm and belongs into the
realm of block compression methods. Basically it separates the
input data into blocks and reorders the bit sequences until
redundancy is maximized and then compresses the resulting bit
stream. It also stores all the reordering actions it did so that
everything can be undone. Burrows and Wheeler succeeded in
proving that this provides excellent compression. It, however,
is computing intensive - compression takes 5 to ten times longer
than with gzip.

To exploit that new approach, there is the program "bzip2". It
has been with Slackware since version 3.4.

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