xref: /third_party/zlib/contrib/delphi/readme.txt (revision 275793ea)
1275793eaSopenharmony_ci
2275793eaSopenharmony_ciOverview
3275793eaSopenharmony_ci========
4275793eaSopenharmony_ci
5275793eaSopenharmony_ciThis directory contains an update to the ZLib interface unit,
6275793eaSopenharmony_cidistributed by Borland as a Delphi supplemental component.
7275793eaSopenharmony_ci
8275793eaSopenharmony_ciThe original ZLib unit is Copyright (c) 1997,99 Borland Corp.,
9275793eaSopenharmony_ciand is based on zlib version 1.0.4.  There are a series of bugs
10275793eaSopenharmony_ciand security problems associated with that old zlib version, and
11275793eaSopenharmony_ciwe recommend the users to update their ZLib unit.
12275793eaSopenharmony_ci
13275793eaSopenharmony_ci
14275793eaSopenharmony_ciSummary of modifications
15275793eaSopenharmony_ci========================
16275793eaSopenharmony_ci
17275793eaSopenharmony_ci- Improved makefile, adapted to zlib version 1.2.1.
18275793eaSopenharmony_ci
19275793eaSopenharmony_ci- Some field types from TZStreamRec are changed from Integer to
20275793eaSopenharmony_ci  Longint, for consistency with the zlib.h header, and for 64-bit
21275793eaSopenharmony_ci  readiness.
22275793eaSopenharmony_ci
23275793eaSopenharmony_ci- The zlib_version constant is updated.
24275793eaSopenharmony_ci
25275793eaSopenharmony_ci- The new Z_RLE strategy has its corresponding symbolic constant.
26275793eaSopenharmony_ci
27275793eaSopenharmony_ci- The allocation and deallocation functions and function types
28275793eaSopenharmony_ci  (TAlloc, TFree, zlibAllocMem and zlibFreeMem) are now cdecl,
29275793eaSopenharmony_ci  and _malloc and _free are added as C RTL stubs.  As a result,
30275793eaSopenharmony_ci  the original C sources of zlib can be compiled out of the box,
31275793eaSopenharmony_ci  and linked to the ZLib unit.
32275793eaSopenharmony_ci
33275793eaSopenharmony_ci
34275793eaSopenharmony_ciSuggestions for improvements
35275793eaSopenharmony_ci============================
36275793eaSopenharmony_ci
37275793eaSopenharmony_ciCurrently, the ZLib unit provides only a limited wrapper around
38275793eaSopenharmony_cithe zlib library, and much of the original zlib functionality is
39275793eaSopenharmony_cimissing.  Handling compressed file formats like ZIP/GZIP or PNG
40275793eaSopenharmony_cicannot be implemented without having this functionality.
41275793eaSopenharmony_ciApplications that handle these formats are either using their own,
42275793eaSopenharmony_ciduplicated code, or not using the ZLib unit at all.
43275793eaSopenharmony_ci
44275793eaSopenharmony_ciHere are a few suggestions:
45275793eaSopenharmony_ci
46275793eaSopenharmony_ci- Checksum class wrappers around adler32() and crc32(), similar
47275793eaSopenharmony_ci  to the Java classes that implement the java.util.zip.Checksum
48275793eaSopenharmony_ci  interface.
49275793eaSopenharmony_ci
50275793eaSopenharmony_ci- The ability to read and write raw deflate streams, without the
51275793eaSopenharmony_ci  zlib stream header and trailer.  Raw deflate streams are used
52275793eaSopenharmony_ci  in the ZIP file format.
53275793eaSopenharmony_ci
54275793eaSopenharmony_ci- The ability to read and write gzip streams, used in the GZIP
55275793eaSopenharmony_ci  file format, and normally produced by the gzip program.
56275793eaSopenharmony_ci
57275793eaSopenharmony_ci- The ability to select a different compression strategy, useful
58275793eaSopenharmony_ci  to PNG and MNG image compression, and to multimedia compression
59275793eaSopenharmony_ci  in general.  Besides the compression level
60275793eaSopenharmony_ci
61275793eaSopenharmony_ci    TCompressionLevel = (clNone, clFastest, clDefault, clMax);
62275793eaSopenharmony_ci
63275793eaSopenharmony_ci  which, in fact, could have used the 'z' prefix and avoided
64275793eaSopenharmony_ci  TColor-like symbols
65275793eaSopenharmony_ci
66275793eaSopenharmony_ci    TCompressionLevel = (zcNone, zcFastest, zcDefault, zcMax);
67275793eaSopenharmony_ci
68275793eaSopenharmony_ci  there could be a compression strategy
69275793eaSopenharmony_ci
70275793eaSopenharmony_ci    TCompressionStrategy = (zsDefault, zsFiltered, zsHuffmanOnly, zsRle);
71275793eaSopenharmony_ci
72275793eaSopenharmony_ci- ZIP and GZIP stream handling via TStreams.
73275793eaSopenharmony_ci
74275793eaSopenharmony_ci
75275793eaSopenharmony_ci--
76275793eaSopenharmony_ciCosmin Truta <cosmint@cs.ubbcluj.ro>
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