This document provides a comprehensive overview of the Windows API's compression functions. Understanding these functions is crucial for various applications and optimizations.
The Compress-Pzip function is the core of the compression process. It performs a series of steps to compress a file, including: Decoding, Decompression, Entropy Encoding, and then storing it.
We will now explore each step in detail.
This step begins by decoding the source file into a format understood by the DDE driver.
The DDE driver reads the file and translates the data into a representation that can be used for compression. This conversion is a critical initial step.
The DDE driver now decompresses the data, which is a further conversion to a format suitable for compression.
The decompression process involves converting the compressed data back to its original format.
The Huffman algorithm is applied to the compressed data. This algorithm assigns shorter codes to more frequent characters.
The resulting data is now in a more efficient format for compression, reducing the amount of data needed to represent the file.
The Compress-Pzip function now stores the compressed data, preparing it for further processing.
The Compress-Pzip function handles the entire compression process - decoding, decompression, entropy encoding, and data storage. This is the foundation of Windows API-based compression functionality.