[Lzip-bug] Lzip 1.20 released

[Antonio Diaz Diaz]

I am pleased to announce the release of lzip 1.20.

This year we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of lzip. Ten years 
providing a high quality compression format whose design is based on the 
excellent LZMA "algorithm"[1] and on the lessons learned from previous 
compressors (gzip and bzip2)[2]. Thanks to all the people who made it 
possible.

[1] http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/manual/lzip_manual.html#Algorithm
[2] http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/manual/lzip_manual.html#Quality-assurance

Lzip is a lossless data compressor with a user interface similar to the 
one of gzip or bzip2. Lzip can compress about as fast as gzip (lzip -0), 
or compress most files more than bzip2 (lzip -9). Decompression speed is 
intermediate between gzip and bzip2. Lzip is better than gzip and bzip2 
from a data recovery perspective.

The lzip file format is designed for data sharing and long-term 
archiving, taking into account both data integrity and decoder availability:

  * The lzip format provides very safe integrity checking and some data
    recovery means. The lziprecover program can repair bit-flip errors
    (one of the most common forms of data corruption) in lzip files,
    and provides data recovery capabilities, including error-checked
    merging of damaged copies of a file.
  * The lzip format is as simple as possible (but not simpler). The
    lzip manual provides the source code of a simple decompressor along
    with a detailed explanation of how it works, so that with the only
    help of the lzip manual it would be possible for a digital
    archaeologist to extract the data from a lzip file long after
    quantum computers eventually render LZMA obsolete.
  * Additionally the lzip reference implementation is copylefted, which
    guarantees that it will remain free forever.

The homepage is at http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/lzip.html

A benchmark can be found at http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/lzip_benchmark.html

The sources can be downloaded from 
http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/lzip/

The sha256sums are:
f719f64ab9c59fd4b8c8f88e824f9332b4ff53f2e50d1c36deb4ee2e790c5dfa 
lzip-1.20.tar.lz
c93b81a5a7788ef5812423d311345ba5d3bd4f5ebf1f693911e3a13553c1290c 
lzip-1.20.tar.gz

This release is also GPG signed. You can download the signature by 
appending '.sig' to the URL. If the 'gpg --verify' command fails because 
you don't have the required public key, then run this command to import it:

  gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-keys 8FE99503132D7742

Key fingerprint = 1D41 C14B 272A 2219 A739  FA4F 8FE9 9503 132D 7742


Changes in version 1.20:

  * The option '--loose-trailing', has been added.

  * The test used by lzip to discriminate trailing data from a corrupt 
header in multimember or concatenated files has been improved to a 
Hamming distance (HD) of 3, and the 3 bit flips must happen in different 
magic bytes for the test to fail. As a consequence some kinds of files 
no longer can be appended to a lzip file as trailing data unless the 
'--loose-trailing' option is used when decompressing.
Lziprecover can be used to remove conflicting trailing data from a file.

  * The contents of a corrupt or truncated header found in a 
multimember file are now shown, after the error message, in the same 
format as trailing data.

  * Option '-S, --volume-size' now keeps input files unchanged.

  * When creating multimember files or splitting the output in volumes, 
the dictionary size is now adjusted for each member individually.

  * The 'bits/byte' ratio has been replaced with the inverse 
compression ratio in the output.

  * The progress of decompression is now shown at verbosity level 2 
(-vv) or higher.

  * Progress of (de)compression is only shown if stderr is a terminal.

  * A final diagnostic is now shown at verbosity level 1 (-v) or higher 
if any file fails the test when testing multiple files.

  * A second '.lz' extension is no longer added to the argument of '-o' 
if it already ends in '.lz' or '.tlz'.

  * In case of (de)compressed size mismatch, the stored size is now 
also shown in hexadecimal to ease visual comparison.

  * The dictionary size is now shown at verbosity level 4 (-vvvv) when 
decompressing or testing.

  * The new chapter "Meaning of lzip's output" has been added to the 
manual.


Please send bug reports and suggestions to address@hidden


Regards,
Antonio Diaz, lzip author and maintainer.

--
If you are distributing software in xz format, please consider using 
lzip instead. See http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/lzip_benchmark.html#xz1 and 
http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/xz_inadequate.html