COMPFACE(1)

💖 COMPFACE 💖

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, because today we're talking about compface and uncompface — the iconic little duo from the General Commands Manual that squishes and un-squishes 48x48x1 face image files. no cap, they're actually so good at it. 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

compface, uncompface — compress and expand 48x48x1 face image files 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

compface [ infile [ outfile ] ] ...

uncompface [-X] [ infile [ outfile ] ] ...

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so basically, compface is a filter, and what it does is generate highly compressed representations of 48x48x1 face image files. and uncompface? she's the inverse filter — she performs an inverse transformation and there is no loss of data. zero. none. the data comes back exactly as it left. periodt. ✨

the algorithm is highly tuned for its purpose (it's giving main character energy honestly) and it achieves better than a five to one compression ratio on average. obsessed.

the arguments operate identically for both programmes, so like, learn it once, you're set. here's the tea:

• the first argument, if it's there, makes input come from the named file instead of from standard input — unless it's the string `-`.
• the second argument, if it's there, makes output go to the named file instead of to standard output — again, unless it's the string `-`.
• and then subsequent pairs of arguments can specify even more pairs of input and output files. slay.

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🎀 the formats (pay attention bestie) 🎀

the input format for compface (which is also the output format for uncompface) is:

48 lines, each of 3 sixteen bit hexadecimal integers, comma terminated, in C initialiser style.

the output format of compface (which is also the input format for uncompface) is:

some number of lines made up of a space followed by printable characters, in the range `!` to `~` inclusive. the first line contains 72 characters, and the following lines contain 79 characters — except that the last line may be short. 💀

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🌈 the XBM glow-up 🌈

this version of compface has been patched to also be able to handle normal XBM images. but listen — uncompface will produce XBM output only if the -X switch is applied. no -X, no XBM. iykyk.

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⭐ how much does it actually shrink? ⭐

the amount of compression obtained varies between face image files, but the output of compface averages less than 200 characters. and the average number of output lines is three. three!! that's it!! iconic behaviour honestly. 🍓

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💜 DIAGNOSTICS 💜

exit status is normally 0. she's chill like that.

but if something goes wrong, possible errors include:

• IO errors when opening, reading or writing files
• format errors in compface input files
• invalid arguments

each one of these results in an explanatory message on standard error and an exit status of 1. 😭

also, a warning will be produced if compface detects extra input data. just a heads up, bestie.

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💀 BUGS 💀

nominating standard input as input more than once does not work. that's it. that's the bug. don't do it. 🙈

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🧚 SEE ALSO 🧚

• Compface(3)

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and that's the whole page, babe — written by the compface girlies back on 25 January 1990, and still living in the General Commands Manual section 1 of the COMPFACE page like the legends they are. mwah. 💖✨🎀