compression_overview(3)

✨ NAME ✨

compression_overview — file compression 💖

okay bestie, listen up, because Coin is out here supporting reading and writing Inventor and VRML files that have been compressed with either gzip or bzip2 (as of yet — more formats may come in the future 👀). and like, obviously this whole situation is only enabled when Coin can actually link with the corresponding compression libraries. no libs, no compression, no cap 🫶

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

Reading compressed files is completely transparent, fr fr — there is literally nothing the developer has to do to support it. it just happens. you show up, the file is compressed, Coin handles it, main character energy only 👑

Writing compressed files, though? that's a whole thing you control through SoOutput::setCompression. that's your knob, bestie, turn it 💅

and if you wanna know which compression methods you even have available, you fetch that list with SoOutput::getAvailableCompressionMethods. easy ✨

⚠️ You can not use file compression together with I/O to memory buffers — the one exception being reading from memory buffers containing gzip-compressed files. that's the only loophole, iykyk 😭

and now the part where we have to be serious for a sec: for backwards compatibility with Coin 2.0 and Coin 1.0, compressed files must not be used. Compressed files work only from Coin 2.1 and upwards. like, do not do it, this is not a drill 🙈

🕰️ Since

Coin 2.1 ⭐

👀 See also

• SoOutput::setCompression
• SoOutput::getAvailableCompressionMethods

and that's the whole vibe — this lil page is straight outta Coin, Version 2.5.0, filed under compression_overview(3). go compress something cute 💜🎀