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+
+XZ Utils
+========
+
+ 0. Overview
+ 1. Documentation
+ 1.1. Overall documentation
+ 1.2. Documentation for command line tools
+ 1.3. Documentation for liblzma
+ 2. Version numbering
+ 3. Reporting bugs
+ 4. Other implementations of the .xz format
+ 5. Contact information
+
+
+0. Overview
+-----------
+
+ XZ Utils provide a general-purpose data compression library and
+ command line tools. The native file format is the .xz format, but
+ also the legacy .lzma format is supported. The .xz format supports
+ multiple compression algorithms, which are called "filters" in
+ context of XZ Utils. The primary filter is currently LZMA2. With
+ typical files, XZ Utils create about 30 % smaller files than gzip.
+
+ To ease adapting support for the .xz format into existing applications
+ and scripts, the API of liblzma is somewhat similar to the API of the
+ popular zlib library. For the same reason, the command line tool xz
+ has similar command line syntax than that of gzip.
+
+ When aiming for the highest compression ratio, LZMA2 encoder uses
+ a lot of CPU time and may use, depending on the settings, even
+ hundreds of megabytes of RAM. However, in fast modes, LZMA2 encoder
+ competes with bzip2 in compression speed, RAM usage, and compression
+ ratio.
+
+ LZMA2 is reasonably fast to decompress. It is a little slower than
+ gzip, but a lot faster than bzip2. Being fast to decompress means
+ that the .xz format is especially nice when the same file will be
+ decompressed very many times (usually on different computers), which
+ is the case e.g. when distributing software packages. In such
+ situations, it's not too bad if the compression takes some time,
+ since that needs to be done only once to benefit many people.
+
+ With some file types, combining (or "chaining") LZMA2 with an
+ additional filter can improve compression ratio. A filter chain may
+ contain up to four filters, although usually only one two is used.
+ For example, putting a BCJ (Branch/Call/Jump) filter before LZMA2
+ in the filter chain can improve compression ratio of executable files.
+
+ Since the .xz format allows adding new filter IDs, it is possible that
+ some day there will be a filter that is, for example, much faster to
+ compress than LZMA2 (but probably with worse compression ratio).
+ Similarly, it is possible that some day there is a filter that will
+ compress better than LZMA2.
+
+ XZ Utils doesn't support multithreaded compression or decompression
+ yet. It has been planned though and taken into account when designing
+ the .xz file format.
+
+
+1. Documentation
+----------------
+
+1.1. Overall documentation
+
+ README This file
+
+ INSTALL.generic Generic install instructions for those not familiar
+ with packages using GNU Autotools
+ INSTALL Installation instructions specific to XZ Utils
+ PACKAGERS Information to packagers of XZ Utils
+
+ COPYING XZ Utils copyright and license information
+ COPYING.GPLv2 GNU General Public License version 2
+ COPYING.GPLv3 GNU General Public License version 3
+ COPYING.LGPLv2.1 GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1
+
+ AUTHORS The main authors of XZ Utils
+ THANKS Incomplete list of people who have helped making
+ this software
+ NEWS User-visible changes between XZ Utils releases
+ ChangeLog Detailed list of changes (commit log)
+ TODO Known bugs and some sort of to-do list
+
+ Note that only some of the above files are included in binary
+ packages.
+
+
+1.2. Documentation for command line tools
+
+ The command line tools are documented as man pages. In source code
+ releases (and possibly also in some binary packages), the man pages
+ are also provided in plain text (ASCII only) and PDF formats in the
+ directory "doc/man" to make the man pages more accessible to those
+ whose operating system doesn't provide an easy way to view man pages.
+
+
+1.3. Documentation for liblzma
+
+ The liblzma API headers include short docs about each function
+ and data type as Doxygen tags. These docs should be quite OK as
+ a quick reference.
+
+ I have planned to write a bunch of very well documented example
+ programs, which (due to comments) should work as a tutorial to
+ various features of liblzma. No such example programs have been
+ written yet.
+
+ For now, if you have never used liblzma, libbzip2, or zlib, I
+ recommend learning *basics* of zlib API. Once you know that, it
+ should be easier to learn liblzma.
+
+ http://zlib.net/manual.html
+ http://zlib.net/zlib_how.html
+
+
+2. Version numbering
+--------------------
+
+ The version number format of XZ Utils is X.Y.ZS:
+
+ - X is the major version. When this is incremented, the library
+ API and ABI break.
+
+ - Y is the minor version. It is incremented when new features are
+ added without breaking existing API or ABI. Even Y indicates
+ stable release and odd Y indicates unstable (alpha or beta
+ version).
+
+ - Z is the revision. This has different meaning for stable and
+ unstable releases:
+ * Stable: Z is incremented when bugs get fixed without adding
+ any new features.
+ * Unstable: Z is just a counter. API or ABI of features added
+ in earlier unstable releases having the same X.Y may break.
+
+ - S indicates stability of the release. It is missing from the
+ stable releases where Y is an even number. When Y is odd, S
+ is either "alpha" or "beta" to make it very clear that such
+ versions are not stable releases. The same X.Y.Z combination is
+ not used for more than one stability level i.e. after X.Y.Zalpha,
+ the next version can be X.Y.(Z+1)beta but not X.Y.Zbeta.
+
+
+3. Reporting bugs
+-----------------
+
+ Naturally it is easiest for me if you already know what causes the
+ unexpected behavior. Even better if you have a patch to propose.
+ However, quite often the reason for unexpected behavior is unknown,
+ so here are a few things to do before sending a bug report:
+
+ 1. Try to create a small example how to reproduce the issue.
+
+ 2. Compile XZ Utils with debugging code using configure switches
+ --enable-debug and, if possible, --disable-shared. If you are
+ using GCC, use CFLAGS='-O0 -ggdb3'. Don't strip the resulting
+ binaries.
+
+ 3. Turn on core dumps. The exact command depends on your shell;
+ for example in GNU bash it is done with "ulimit -c unlimited",
+ and in tcsh with "limit coredumpsize unlimited".
+
+ 4. Try to reproduce the suspected bug. If you get "assertion failed"
+ message, be sure to include the complete message in your bug
+ report. If the application leaves a coredump, get a backtrace
+ using gdb:
+ $ gdb /path/to/app-binary # Load the app to the debugger.
+ (gdb) core core # Open the coredump.
+ (gdb) bt # Print the backtrace. Copy & paste to bug report.
+ (gdb) quit # Quit gdb.
+
+ Report your bug via email or IRC (see Contact information below).
+ Don't send core dump files or any executables. If you have a small
+ example file(s) (total size less than 256 KiB), please include
+ it/them as an attachment. If you have bigger test files, put them
+ online somewhere and include an URL to the file(s) in the bug report.
+
+ Always include the exact version number of XZ Utils in the bug report.
+ If you are using a snapshot from the git repository, use "git describe"
+ to get the exact snapshot version. If you are using XZ Utils shipped
+ in an operating system distribution, mention the distribution name,
+ distribution version, and exact xz package version; if you cannot
+ repeat the bug with the code compiled from unpatched source code,
+ you probably need to report a bug to your distribution's bug tracking
+ system.
+
+
+4. Other implementations of the .xz format
+------------------------------------------
+
+ 7-Zip and the p7zip port of 7-Zip support the .xz format starting
+ from the version 9.00alpha.
+
+ http://7-zip.org/
+ http://p7zip.sourceforge.net/
+
+ XZ Embedded is a limited implementation written for use in the Linux
+ kernel, but it is also suitable for other embedded use.
+
+ http://tukaani.org/xz/embedded.html
+
+
+5. Contact information
+----------------------
+
+ If you have questions, bug reports, patches etc. related to XZ Utils,
+ contact Lasse Collin <lasse.collin@tukaani.org> (in Finnish or English).
+ tukaani.org uses greylisting to reduce spam, thus when you send your
+ first email, it may get delayed by a few hours. In addition to that,
+ I'm sometimes slow at replying. If you haven't got a reply within two
+ weeks, assume that your email has got lost and resend it or use IRC.
+
+ You can find me also from #tukaani on Freenode; my nick is Larhzu.
+ The channel tends to be pretty quiet, so just ask your question and
+ someone may wake up.
+