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compress

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Medical, Acronyms, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.01 sec.

(1) To compact data to save space. See data compression and archive program.

(2) A Unix utility used to compress files. See archive formats and tar.

1.compress - To feed data through any compression algorithm.
2.(tool)compress - The Unix program "compress", now largely supplanted by gzip.

Unix compress was written in C by Joseph M. Orost, James A. Woods et al., and was widely circulated via Usenet. It uses the Lempel-Ziv Welch algorithm and normally produces files with the suffix ".Z".

Compress uses variable length codes. Initially, nine-bit codes are output until they are all used. When this occurs, ten-bit codes are used and so on, until an implementation-dependent maximum is reached.

After every 10 kilobytes of input the compression ratio is checked. If it is decreasing then the entire string table is discarded and information is collected from scratch.
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But I will not try to compress into a few sentences the character of the sage, who, as a Frenchman expressed it, snatched the lightning from the sky and the sceptre from a tyrant.
Grandfather's Chair by Hawthorne, Nathaniel View in context
Without laboratories, without coaching, sitting in my bedroom, I proceeded to compress that two years' work into three months and to keep reviewed on the previous year's work.
John Barleycorn by London, Jack View in context
In her indignation there was a sense of superiority, but it went out for the present in firmness of stroke, and did not compress itself into an inward articulate voice pronouncing the once "affable archangel" a poor creature.
Middlemarch by Eliot, George View in context
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