I noticed last night that Phobos actually has all the machinations
required for reading gzipped files, buried in etc.c.zlib. I've wanted a
high-level D interface for reading and writing compressed files with an
API similar to "normal" file I/O for a while. I'm thinking about what
the easiest/best design would be. At a high level there are two designs:
1. Hack std.stdio.file to support gzipped formats. This would allow an
identical interface for "normal" and compressed I/O. It would also
allow reuse of things like ByLine. However, it would require major
refactoring of File to decouple it from the C file I/O routines so that
it could call either the C or GZip ones depending on how it's
configured. Probably, it would make sense to make an interface that
wraps I/O functions and make an instance for C and one for gzip, with
bzip2 and other goodies possibly being added later.
2. Write something completely separate. This would keep std.stdio.File
doing one thing well (wrapping C file I/O) but would be more of a PITA
for the user and possibly result in code duplication.
I'd like to get some comments on what an appropriate API design and
implementation for writing gzipped files would be. Two key requirements
are that it must be as easy to use as std.stdio.File and it must be easy
to extend to support other single-file compression formats like bz2.
- GZip File Reading dsimcha
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