high-quality block-sorting file compressor library - development Static libraries and include files for the bzip2 compressor library. bzip2 is a freely available, patent free, high-quality data compressor. It typically compresses files to within 10% to 15% of the best available techniques, whilst being around twice as fast at compression and six times faster at decompression. bzip2 compresses files using the Burrows-Wheeler block-sorting text compression algorithm, and Huffman coding. Compression is generally considerably better than that achieved by more conventional LZ77/LZ78-based compressors, and approaches the performance of the PPM family of statistical compressors. The archive file format of bzip2 (.bz2) is incompatible with that of its predecessor, bzip (.bz). Homepage http://www.bzip.org/