Does anyone have or know of someone who has (a) data compression/
expansion subroutine(s) written in Pick Basic or in C?

It needs to be something which works entirely with variables and
arrays, not writing to disk.

ummm,

It might help to know which platform you are referring to .... but
probably not, because if you are looking at STORING (or using!) the
resultant compressed variable from within "pick" (of whatever flavour
you are using), any "real" compression algorithm is likely to generate
^255 characters, which are likely to cause you grief.

How BIG are the variables you are looking to compress?

Because of the calculations required, a BASIC solution is likely to be
impractical simply because of speed --> if you can give me some more
specifics to work on in terms of what you are trying to achieve, we
have some "stuff" that might be useful.

Why not just write to a file & zip that --> Simple. Easy. Works!!!

paddy wrote:


I recently wrote a client/server utility that will compress data
moving across telnet or other pipes. It's C# on one side and BASIC on
the other. So far the best compression I'm getting is about 50% on
"large" blocks of data, within less than a second in D3 using
FlashBASIC. I'm experimenting to find more places where data can be
compressed without losing significant time. The whole point is to
reduce transmission time. Compression ratios depend a lot on the kind
of data, repeat patterns, etc. The same algorithms in unFlashed BASIC
in D3 (IIRC) took about 20+ seconds to process the same volume of
data. I wrote this for mv.NET but it can be used anywhere where a
..NET client can be inserted into the pipeline. I haven't tried it in
other platforms yet or across various connectivity components like
QMClient, UO.NET, or the new MVSP.

And now to the obvious questions:
1) Will it be free?
2) Will it be open source? (Which is really just another way of
asking if it's going to be free.)

I dunno yet. I need to make sure it's all rock solid, then see if
anyone wants to embed it in their GUI products or other toolkits.

So the answer is "yes", it exists. The next question is. What would
you like to do? You didn't say the magic word "free", I don't know if
that's implied or required.

Tony Gravagno
Nebula Research and Development
TG@ remove.pleaseNebula-RnD.com
Nebula R&D sells mv.NET and other Pick/MultiValue products
worldwide, and provides related development services
remove.pleaseNebula-RnD.com/blog
Visit PickWiki.com! Contribute!
http://Twitter.com/TonyGravagno