Deflate
| Deflate | |
|---|---|
| Developed by | Phil Katz, PKWare |
| Initial release | 21 August 1990 |
| Compression | LZ77, Huffman coding |
| Open format? | Yes |
| Free format? | Yes |
| Website | www |
In computing, Deflate (stylized as DEFLATE, and also called Flate[1][2]) is a lossless data compression file format that uses a combination of LZ77 and Huffman coding. It was designed by Phil Katz, for version 2 of his PKZIP archiving tool. Deflate was later specified in Request for Comments (RFC) 1951 (1996).[3]
Katz also designed the original algorithm used to construct Deflate streams. This algorithm received software patent U.S. patent 5,051,745, assigned to PKWare, Inc.[4][5] As stated in the RFC document, an algorithm producing Deflate files was widely thought to be implementable in a manner not covered by patents.[3] This led to its widespread use. For example, in gzip compressed files and Portable Network Graphics (PNG) image files, in addition to the ZIP file format for which Katz originally designed it. The patent has since expired.
- ^ The Go Authors. "flate package - compress/flate - Go Packages". The Go Programming Language. Google. Retrieved 5 September 2023.
Package flate implements the Deflate compressed data format, described in RFC issue 1951.
- ^ "PDF 32000-1:2008: Document management — Portable document format — Part 1: PDF 1.7" (PDF). Adobe Open Source. Adobe Inc. p. 23. Retrieved 5 September 2023.
FlateDecode [...] Decompresses data encoded using the zlib/deflate compression method
- ^ a b Deutsch, L. Peter (May 1996). Deflate Compressed Data Format Specification version 1.3. Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). p. 1. sec. Abstract. doi:10.17487/RFC1951. RFC 1951. Retrieved 2014-04-23.
- ^ US patent 5051745, Katz, Phillip W., "String Searcher, and Compressor Using Same", published 1991-09-24, issued 1991-09-24, assigned to PKWare Inc.
- ^ Salomon, David (2007). Data Compression: The Complete Reference (4 ed.). Springer. p. 241. ISBN 978-1-84628-602-5.