Gzip
From Just Solve the File Format Problem
gzip is a compressed file format and command line utility used primarily on Unix-style operating systems, but available cross-platform. It uses DEFLATE compression.
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Identification
gzip files begin with two signature bytes: 0x1F 0x8B. The third byte indicates the compression method, and is normally 0x08 (meaning DEFLATE).
gzip 0.5 apparently used Freeze/Melt 1.x format, with signature bytes 0x1F 0x9E.
Specifications
Software
- Original gzip
- GNU gzip
- 7-Zip
- zlib
- zopfli (Gzip-compatible, better compression, but very slow compression)
- Tiny gzip decompressor without using zlib (C++)
- Deark
See also DEFLATE#Software.
Links
- Wikipedia article
- Dissecting the GZIP format
- Chart of format
- How are zlib, gzip and Zip related? What do they have in common and how are they different? - Response to StackOverflow question by zlib/gzip co-creator Mark Adler
