[Zlib-devel] Plans for zlib 1.2.5

[Mark Adler]

Edwin,

On Feb 22, 2010, at 1:09 AM, Török Edwin wrote:
> I noticed that Z_FILTERED gives a significant improvement in compression
> ratio (around 9%) when used on text files which contain lot of
> hexadecimal-encoded data; for example ClamAV's database, which uses
> Z_FILTERED now for compression.
> 
> Could zlib automatically determine what is best for a block, and use the
> strategy that gives best compression ratio?

Yes, it could.  I'll put that on the list.

> Is there anything else that
> could be tuned by introducing new strategies that are transparent to the
> decompressor?

Yes, there are ways to make compression better by about 2% to 10% with a much slower but more aggressive deflator.  I will consider that for a version after 1.2.5.

Mark