 ============================================================================
 lzop -- a real-time compressor
 ============================================================================

 Author  : Markus Franz Xaver Johannes Oberhumer
           <markus.oberhumer@jk.uni-linz.ac.at>
           http://www.infosys.tuwien.ac.at/Staff/lux/marco/lzop.html
 Version : 0.95
 Date    : 07-Dec-1997


 Introduction
 ------------
 Welcome to the fifth public release of lzop.

 lzop is a compressor similiar to gzip. Its main advantages over gzip
 are much higher compression and decompression speed.

 lzop was designed with the following goals in mind:
   1) reliability
   2) speed (both compression and decompression)
   3) reasonable drop-in compatibility to gzip
   4) portability


 Short documentation
 -------------------
 General functionality and behaviour has been modelled very closely
 after gzip. Due to lack of documentation at this time you are advised
 to consult the gzip manual pages first.

 The main differences between lzop and gzip are:

 - Files compressed by lzop will have the suffix `.lzo'

 - lzop does not delete the input file(s) by default.
   You have to use the option `-U' if you want this behaviour.


 Compression levels
 ------------------
 lzop currently offers three compression levels of the LZO1X algorithm.

 - the default level (`-5') offers pretty fast compression
 - level `-1' can be even a little bit faster in some cases - but most
   times you won't notice the difference
 - level `-9' is mainly intended for generating pre-compressed data - it
   is somewhat slow

 Decompression is *very* fast for all levels.


 Modes of operation
 ------------------
 lzop allows you to deal with your files in many flexible ways:

 - single file mode: individually (de-)compress each file
 - pipe mode: (de-)compress from stdin to stdout
 - stdout mode: (de-)compress to stdout
 - archive mode: compress/extract multiple files into a single archive file


 Here are some usage examples for each of the modes:

 * single file mode (like gzip)

    create
      lzop a.c             -> create a.c.lzo
      lzop a.c b.c         -> create a.c.lzo & b.c.lzo
      lzop -U a.c b.c      -> create a.c.lzo & b.c.lzo and delete a.c & b.c
      lzop *.c

    extract
      lzop -d a.c.lzo      -> restore a.c
      lzop -df a.c.lzo     -> restore a.c, overwrite if already exists
      lzop -d *.lzo

    list
      lzop -l a.c.lzo
      lzop -l *.lzo
      lzop -lv *.lzo       -> be verbose

    test
      lzop -t a.c.lzo
      lzop -tq *.lzo       -> be quiet


 * pipe mode (like gzip)

    create
      lzop < a.c > y.lzo
      cat a.c | lzop > y.lzo
      tar -cf - *.c | lzop > y.tar.lzo     -> create a compressed tar file

    extract
      lzop -d < y.lzo > a.c
      lzop -d < y.tar.lzo | tar -xvf -     -> extract a tar file
      lzop -d < y.tar.lzo | tar -tvf -     -> list a tar file

    list
      lzop -l < y.lzo
      cat y.lzo | lzop -l

    test
      lzop -t < y.lzo
      cat y.lzo | lzop -t


 * stdout mode (like gzip)

    create
      lzop -c a.c > y.lzo

    extract
      lzop -dc y.lzo > a.c
      lzop -dc y.tar.lzo | tar -tvf -      -> list a tar file


 * archive mode (similiar to zip/zoo/lha/rar)

    create
      lzop a.c b.c -o sources.lzo          -> create an archive
      lzop -c *.c > sources.lzo            -> another way to create an archive
      lzop -c *.h >> sources.lzo           -> add files to archive

    extract
      lzop -dN sources.lzo
      lzop -x ../src/sources.lzo           -> extract to current directory
      lzop -x -p/tmp < ../src/sources.lzo  -> extract to /tmp directory

    list
      lzop -lNv sources.lzo

    test
      lzop -t sources.lzo


 Related links
 -------------
 Precompiled binaries for some platforms will be available from
 the lzop home page soon.
   see http://www.infosys.tuwien.ac.at/Staff/lux/marco/lzop.html

 lzop uses the LZO data compression library for compression services.
   see http://www.infosys.tuwien.ac.at/Staff/lux/marco/lzo.html

 The gzip home page can be found at http://www.gzip.org


 The future
 ----------
 - write some real documentation
 - anything you find useful...


 Copyright
 ---------
 lzop is Copyright (C) 1996, 1997 Markus Franz Xaver Johannes Oberhumer

 lzop is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).
 See the file COPYING.



