help on reducing file size while having a readable format

[pedro.ballester]

Hi everyone,

One of my C programs produces a huge ascii file containing float,
integers and characteres with a given structure. The file is 6.5GB
which can be reduced to 569MB once zipped. The latter led me to think
that there might be a way to achieve significant size reduction, while
having file that can be read using C.

So, do you know any way to write the file so as to get a similar size
reduction while being able to read its contents? I have already tried
to open a binary file for writing, but there is not much change.

Thanks in advance,

Pedro

[Tom St Denis]

[e-mail] wrote:

Hi everyone,

One of my C programs produces a huge ascii file containing float,
integers and characteres with a given structure. The file is 6.5GB
which can be reduced to 569MB once zipped. The latter led me to think
that there might be a way to achieve significant size reduction, while
having file that can be read using C.

libz from gzip supports formatted input/output from gzip streams.

[off topic in clc though...]

Head to gzip.org and look at their API.

Tom

[santosh]

pe*************@gmail.com wrote:

Hi everyone,

One of my C programs produces a huge ascii file containing float,
integers and characteres with a given structure. The file is 6.5GB
which can be reduced to 569MB once zipped. The latter led me to think
that there might be a way to achieve significant size reduction, while
having file that can be read using C.

So, do you know any way to write the file so as to get a similar size
reduction while being able to read its contents? I have already tried
to open a binary file for writing, but there is not much change.

You probably need to link to a compression library and inflate and
deflate the file "on-the-fly". Such details are off-topic here, but you
might try zlib.