IO::Compress::Lzip(3)

📦

version 2.217 · 11 versions

💖 IO::Compress::Lzip 💖

okay bestie, welcome to IO::Compress::Lzip(3) — it's a User Contributed Perl Documentation page and it's literally the moment you've been waiting for. This module writes lzip files/buffers, and no cap, it's iconic. Let's get into it 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

IO::Compress::Lzip — Write lzip files/buffers

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

use IO::Compress::Lzip qw(lzip $LzipError) ;

my $status = lzip $input => $output [,OPTS]
    or die "lzip failed: $LzipError\n";

my $z = IO::Compress::Lzip->new( $output [,OPTS] )
    or die "lzip failed: $LzipError\n";

$z->print($string);
$z->printf($format, $string);
$z->write($string);
$z->syswrite($string [, $length, $offset]);
$z->flush();
$z->tell();
$z->eof();
$z->seek($position, $whence);
$z->binmode();
$z->fileno();
$z->opened();
$z->autoflush();
$z->input_line_number();
$z->newStream( [OPTS] );

$z->close() ;

$LzipError ;

# IO::File mode

print $z $string;
printf $z $format, $string;
tell $z
eof $z
seek $z, $position, $whence
binmode $z
fileno $z
close $z ;

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So this module gives you a Perl interface that lets you write lzip compressed data to files or to a buffer. That's the whole vibe. 💅

And if you wanna go the other way — like, reading lzip files/buffers instead of writing them — you want the companion module IO::Uncompress::UnLzip. They're besties. Go say hi. 🌈

🎀 Functional Interface 🎀

There's a top-level function called lzip that does "one-shot" compression between buffers and/or files. It's giving convenience, it's giving effortless. But if you want finer control over the compression process, scroll on down to the "OO Interface" section, because that's where the real customization lives. 👑

use IO::Compress::Lzip qw(lzip $LzipError) ;

lzip $input_filename_or_reference => $output_filename_or_reference [,OPTS]
    or die "lzip failed: $LzipError\n";

heads up: the functional interface needs Perl5.005 or better. periodt.

🌟 `lzip $input_filename_or_reference => $output_filename_or_reference [, OPTS]`

lzip wants at least two parameters — $input_filename_or_reference and $output_filename_or_reference — plus zero or more optional parameters (peep the "Optional Parameters" section for those).

💜 The `$input_filename_or_reference` parameter

This one defines the source of the uncompressed data. It can take one of these forms:

A filename — if $input_filename_or_reference is a simple scalar, it's assumed to be a filename. That file gets opened for reading and the input data gets read from it. Simple, clean, slay.
A filehandle — if $input_filename_or_reference is a filehandle, the input data is read from it. And btw the string '-' can be used as an alias for standard input. 🎀
A scalar reference — if $input_filename_or_reference is a scalar reference, the input data gets read from $$input_filename_or_reference.
An array reference — if $input_filename_or_reference is an array reference, every element in the array has to be a filename. The input data gets read from each file in turn. And the complete array will be walked to make sure it only contains valid filenames before any data is compressed. Safety first, bestie. ✨
An Input FileGlob string — if $input_filename_or_reference is a string delimited by the characters "<" and ">", lzip will assume it's an input fileglob string. The input is the list of files that match the fileglob. See File::GlobMapper for more details. 🦋

And if $input_filename_or_reference is any other type? Then undef gets returned. that's it, that's the answer. 😭

💖 The `$output_filename_or_reference` parameter

This one controls the destination of the compressed data. It can take one of these forms:

A filename — if $output_filename_or_reference is a simple scalar, it's assumed to be a filename. That file gets opened for writing and the compressed data gets written to it.
A filehandle — if $output_filename_or_reference is a filehandle, the compressed data gets written to it. And again, the string '-' can be used as an alias for standard output. 💅
A scalar reference — if $output_filename_or_reference is a scalar reference, the compressed data gets stored in $$output_filename_or_reference.
An Array Reference — if $output_filename_or_reference is an array reference, the compressed data gets pushed onto the array.
An Output FileGlob — if $output_filename_or_reference is a string delimited by the characters "<" and ">", lzip will assume it's an output fileglob string. The output is the list of files that match the fileglob.
- ⚠️ and listen: when $output_filename_or_reference is a fileglob string, $input_filename_or_reference must also be a fileglob string. Anything else is an error. no exceptions, bestie.
- See File::GlobMapper for more details. 🌸

And if $output_filename_or_reference is any other type, then undef will be returned. same energy as before. 💀

🧚 Notes 🧚

When $input_filename_or_reference maps to multiple files/buffers and $output_filename_or_reference is a single file/buffer, the input files/buffers will be stored in $output_filename_or_reference as a concatenated series of compressed data streams. iconic behavior honestly.

🌈 Optional Parameters 🌈

The optional parameters for the one-shot function lzip are (for the most part) identical to the ones used with the OO interface defined in the "Constructor Options" section. The exceptions are listed below, so pay attention:

AutoClose => 0|1 — this option applies to any input or output data streams to lzip that are filehandles. If AutoClose is specified, and the value is true, it will result in all input and/or output filehandles being closed once lzip has completed. This parameter defaults to 0.
BinModeIn => 0|1 — this option is now a no-op. All files will be read in binmode. (she's retired, but she's still on the guest list 💅)
Append => 0|1 — the behaviour of this option depends on the type of output data stream:
- A Buffer — if Append is enabled, all compressed data will be append to the end of the output buffer. Otherwise the output buffer will be cleared before any compressed data is written to it.
- A Filename — if Append is enabled, the file will be opened in append mode. Otherwise the contents of the file, if any, will be truncated before any compressed data is written to it.
- A Filehandle — if Append is enabled, the filehandle will be positioned to the end of the file via a call to seek before any compressed data is written to it. Otherwise the file pointer will not be moved.

When Append is specified, and set to true, it will append all compressed data to the output data stream.

So when the output is a filehandle it will carry out a seek to the eof before writing any compressed data. If the output is a filename, it will be opened for appending. If the output is a buffer, all compressed data will be appended to the existing buffer.

Conversely when Append is not specified, or it is present and is set to false, it will operate as follows.

When the output is a filename, it will truncate the contents of the file before writing any compressed data. If the output is a filehandle its position will not be changed. If the output is a buffer, it will be wiped before any compressed data is output.

Defaults to 0.

⭐ Oneshot Examples ⭐

Here are a few examples that show off what this module can do. main character demos only. 👑

🌊 Streaming

This very simple command line example demonstrates the streaming capabilities of the module. The code reads data from STDIN, compresses it, and writes the compressed data to STDOUT.

$ echo hello world | perl -MIO::Compress::Lzip=lzip -e 'lzip \*STDIN => \*STDOUT' >output.lz

The special filename "-" can be used as a standin for both \*STDIN and \*STDOUT, so the above can be rewritten as

$ echo hello world | perl -MIO::Compress::Lzip=lzip -e 'lzip "-" => "-"' >output.lz

📁 Compressing a file from the filesystem

To read the contents of the file file1.txt and write the compressed data to the file file1.txt.lz.

use strict ;
use warnings ;
use IO::Compress::Lzip qw(lzip $LzipError) ;

my $input = "file1.txt";
lzip $input => "$input.lz"
    or die "lzip failed: $LzipError\n";

🫧 Reading from a Filehandle and writing to an in-memory buffer

To read from an existing Perl filehandle, $input, and write the compressed data to a buffer, $buffer.

use strict ;
use warnings ;
use IO::Compress::Lzip qw(lzip $LzipError) ;
use IO::File ;

my $input = IO::File->new( "<file1.txt" )
    or die "Cannot open 'file1.txt': $!\n" ;
my $buffer ;
lzip $input => \$buffer
    or die "lzip failed: $LzipError\n";

🎀 Compressing multiple files

To compress all files in the directory /my/home that match *.txt and store the compressed data in the same directory

use strict ;
use warnings ;
use IO::Compress::Lzip qw(lzip $LzipError) ;

lzip '</my/home/*.txt>' => '<*.lz>'
    or die "lzip failed: $LzipError\n";

and if you want to compress each file one at a time, this will do the trick

use strict ;
use warnings ;
use IO::Compress::Lzip qw(lzip $LzipError) ;

for my $input ( glob "/my/home/*.txt" )
{
    my $output = "$input.lz" ;
    lzip $input => $output
        or die "Error compressing '$input': $LzipError\n";
}

bestie this is only part 1, don't go anywhere, there's more coming 💖✨

✨ OO Interface ✨

Okay bestie, this is where it gets cute AND powerful. The object-oriented interface is giving main character energy, and you're gonna love it.

🛠️ Constructor 🛠️

The constructor format for IO::Compress::Lzip is literally this:

my $z = IO::Compress::Lzip->new( $output [,OPTS] )
    or die "IO::Compress::Lzip failed: $LzipError\n";

So $output is mandatory, and OPTS is optional — zero or more of them, defined down in "Constructor Options". It returns an IO::Compress::Lzip object on success, and undef if it fails. If it fails, $LzipError will hold the error message, bestie. 😭

If you're running Perl 5.005 or better, the $z object you get back from IO::Compress::Lzip can be used exactly like an IO::File filehandle. That means all your normal output file operations can be done with $z. For example, to write to a compressed file/buffer you can use either of these forms:

$z->print("hello world\n");
print $z "hello world\n";

Here's a simple example of using the OO interface to create an output file myfile.lz and write some data to it:

my $filename = "myfile.lz";
my $z = IO::Compress::Lzip->new($filename)
    or die "IO::Compress::Lzip failed: $LzipError\n";

$z->print("abcde");
$z->close();

See the "Examples" for more. 💖

The mandatory parameter $output controls where the compressed data goes. It can take one of these forms:

A filename — if $output is a simple scalar, it's assumed to be a filename. That file gets opened for writing, and the compressed data gets written to it.
A filehandle — if $output is a filehandle, the compressed data goes there. The string '-' can be used as an alias for standard output.
A scalar reference — if $output is a scalar reference, the compressed data gets stored in $$output.

If $output is any other type, IO::Compress::Lzip::new will return undef. No cap. 🙈

🎛️ Constructor Options 🎛️

OPTS is any combination of zero or more of the following options. Pick your faves, bestie:

AutoClose => 0|1 — This one is only valid when $output is a filehandle. If you specify it and the value is true, $output will be closed once either the close method is called or the IO::Compress::Lzip object is destroyed. Defaults to 0. 💅
Append => 0|1 — Opens $output in append mode. The behaviour depends on the type of $output:
- A Buffer — if $output is a buffer and Append is enabled, all compressed data gets appended to the end of $output. Otherwise $output gets cleared before any data is written to it.
- A Filename — if $output is a filename and Append is enabled, the file gets opened in append mode. Otherwise the contents of the file, if any, get truncated before any compressed data is written to it.
- A Filehandle — if $output is a filehandle, the file pointer gets positioned to the end of the file via a call to seek before any compressed data is written to it. Otherwise the file pointer does not move. This parameter defaults to 0. ✨
DictSize => number — Valid values are between 4K and 128Meg. Defaults to 8 Meg. 🍓
Strict => 0|1 — This is a placeholder option. That's it, that's the tea. ☕

🌈 Examples 🌈

🎬 Streaming 🎬

This very simple command line example demonstrates the streaming capabilities of the module. The code reads data from STDIN or all the files given on the commandline, compresses it, and writes the compressed data to STDOUT. Iconic, honestly.

use strict ;
use warnings ;
use IO::Compress::Lzip qw(lzip $LzipError) ;

my $z = IO::Compress::Lzip->new("-", Stream => 1)
    or die "IO::Compress::Lzip failed: $LzipError\n";

while (<>) {
    $z->print("abcde");
}
$z->close();

Note the use of "-" to mean "STDOUT". Alternatively you can use \*STDOUT. 🫶

📁 Compressing a file from the filesystem 📁

To read the contents of the file file1.txt and write the compressed data to the file file1.txt.lz, there are a few options. Start by creating the compression object and opening the input file:

use strict ;
use warnings ;
use IO::Compress::Lzip qw(lzip $LzipError) ;

my $input = "file1.txt";
my $z = IO::Compress::Lzip->new("file1.txt.lz")
    or die "IO::Compress::Lzip failed: $LzipError\n";

# open the input file
open my $fh, "<", "file1.txt"
    or die "Cannot open file1.txt: $!\n";

# loop through the input file & write to the compressed file
while (<$fh>) {
    $z->print($_);
}

# not forgetting to close the compressed file
$z->close();

🧰 Methods 🧰

🖨️ print 🖨️

Usage is:

$z->print($data)
print $z $data

Compresses and outputs the contents of the $data parameter. This has the same behaviour as the print built-in. Returns true if successful. Slay. 💅

🖨️ printf 🖨️

Usage is:

$z->printf($format, $data)
printf $z $format, $data

Compresses and outputs the contents of the $data parameter. Returns true if successful. ✨

✍️ syswrite ✍️

Usage is:

$z->syswrite $data
$z->syswrite $data, $length
$z->syswrite $data, $length, $offset

Compresses and outputs the contents of the $data parameter. Returns the number of uncompressed bytes written, or undef if unsuccessful. 😭

✍️ write ✍️

Usage is:

$z->write $data
$z->write $data, $length
$z->write $data, $length, $offset

Compresses and outputs the contents of the $data parameter. Returns the number of uncompressed bytes written, or undef if unsuccessful. 💀

🚰 flush 🚰

Usage is:

$z->flush;

Flushes any pending compressed data to the output file/buffer. Returns true on success. 🌊

📍 tell 📍

Usage is:

$z->tell()
tell $z

Returns the uncompressed file offset. 🎯

🏁 eof 🏁

Usage is:

$z->eof();
eof($z);

Returns true if the close method has been called. 👑

⏩ seek ⏩

$z->seek($position, $whence);
seek($z, $position, $whence);

Provides a sub-set of the seek functionality, with the restriction that it is only legal to seek forward in the output file/buffer. It is a fatal error to attempt to seek backward. No going back, bestie. 🚫

Empty parts of the file/buffer will have NULL (0x00) bytes written to them.

The $whence parameter takes one of the usual values, namely SEEK_SET, SEEK_CUR or SEEK_END.

Returns 1 on success, 0 on failure. 🙈

🌀 binmode 🌀

Usage is:

$z->binmode
binmode $z ;

This is a noop provided for completeness. It's giving "I'm just here for the vibes". 💅

👀 opened 👀

$z->opened()

Returns true if the object currently refers to an opened file/buffer. 🫶

🌬️ autoflush 🌬️

my $prev = $z->autoflush()
my $prev = $z->autoflush(EXPR)

If the $z object is associated with a file or a filehandle, this method returns the current autoflush setting for the underlying filehandle. If EXPR is present, and is non-zero, it will enable flushing after every write/print operation.

If $z is associated with a buffer, this method has no effect and always returns undef.

Note that the special variable $| cannot be used to set or retrieve the autoflush setting. Noted, bestie. 📝

🔢 input_line_number 🔢

$z->input_line_number()
$z->input_line_number(EXPR)

This method always returns undef when compressing. That's just how it is. 😭

🔢 fileno 🔢

$z->fileno()
fileno($z)

If the $z object is associated with a file or a filehandle, fileno will return the underlying file descriptor. Once the close method is called, fileno will return undef.

If the $z object is associated with a buffer, this method will return undef. 💀

🔒 close 🔒

$z->close() ;
close $z ;

Flushes any pending compressed data and then closes the output file/buffer.

For most versions of Perl this method will be automatically invoked if the IO::Compress::Lzip object is destroyed (either explicitly or by the variable with the reference to the object going out of scope). The exceptions are Perl versions 5.005 through 5.00504 and 5.8.0. In these cases, the close method will be called automatically, but not until global destruction of all live objects when the program is terminating.

Therefore, if you want your scripts to be able to run on all versions of Perl, you should call close explicitly and not rely on automatic closing. That's the safe vibe. 🛟

Returns true on success, otherwise 0.

If the AutoClose option has been enabled when the IO::Compress::Lzip object was created, and the object is associated with a file, the underlying file will also be closed. 🔥

🌱 newStream([OPTS]) 🌱

Usage is:

$z->newStream( [OPTS] )

Closes the current compressed data stream and starts a new one.

OPTS consists of any of the options that are available when creating the $z object.

See the "Constructor Options" section for more details. ✨

📦 Importing 📦

No symbolic constants are required by IO::Compress::Lzip at present.

:all imports lzip and $LzipError. Same as doing this:

use IO::Compress::Lzip qw(lzip $LzipError) ;

📚 EXAMPLES 📚

✨ (the examples are all up in the Examples zone above, bestie — go scroll and soak it in) ✨

🆘 SUPPORT 🆘

General feedback/questions/bug reports should be sent to <https://github.com/pmqs/IO-Compress-Lzma/issues> (preferred) or <https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=IO-Compress-Lzma>. They're listening, bestie. 🫶

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

Compress::Zlib, IO::Compress::Gzip, IO::Uncompress::Gunzip, IO::Compress::Deflate, IO::Uncompress::Inflate, IO::Compress::RawDeflate, IO::Uncompress::RawInflate, IO::Compress::Bzip2, IO::Uncompress::Bunzip2, IO::Compress::Lzma, IO::Uncompress::UnLzma, IO::Compress::Xz, IO::Uncompress::UnXz, IO::Uncompress::UnLzip, IO::Compress::Lzop, IO::Uncompress::UnLzop, IO::Compress::Lzf, IO::Uncompress::UnLzf, IO::Compress::Zstd, IO::Uncompress::UnZstd, IO::Uncompress::AnyInflate, IO::Uncompress::AnyUncompress

IO::Compress::FAQ

File::GlobMapper, Archive::Zip, Archive::Tar, IO::Zlib

✍️ AUTHOR ✍️

This module was written by Paul Marquess, "pmqs@cpan.org". Legend. 👑

📜 MODIFICATION HISTORY 📜

See the Changes file.

⚖️ COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE ⚖️

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

And that's the whole page, bestie! Served fresh from perl v5.42.0 on 2026-02-01 — IO::Compress::Lzip(3). Now go compress something cute. 💖✨🦋

📦 where this page comes from

fedora 44: perl-IO-Compress-Lzma 2.217-1.fc44 · GPL-1.0-or-later OR Artistic-1.0-Perl
💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on 2026-10-14: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms

IO::Compress::Lzip(3)

💖 IO::Compress::Lzip 💖

✨ NAME ✨

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

🎀 Functional Interface 🎀

🌟 lzip $input_filename_or_reference => $output_filename_or_reference [, OPTS]

💜 The $input_filename_or_reference parameter

💖 The $output_filename_or_reference parameter

🧚 Notes 🧚

🌈 Optional Parameters 🌈

⭐ Oneshot Examples ⭐

🌊 Streaming

📁 Compressing a file from the filesystem

🫧 Reading from a Filehandle and writing to an in-memory buffer

🎀 Compressing multiple files

✨ OO Interface ✨

🛠️ Constructor 🛠️

🎛️ Constructor Options 🎛️

🌈 Examples 🌈

🎬 Streaming 🎬

📁 Compressing a file from the filesystem 📁

🧰 Methods 🧰

🖨️ print 🖨️

🖨️ printf 🖨️

✍️ syswrite ✍️

✍️ write ✍️

🚰 flush 🚰

📍 tell 📍

🏁 eof 🏁

⏩ seek ⏩

🌀 binmode 🌀

👀 opened 👀

🌬️ autoflush 🌬️

🔢 input_line_number 🔢

🔢 fileno 🔢

🔒 close 🔒

🌱 newStream([OPTS]) 🌱

📦 Importing 📦

📚 EXAMPLES 📚

🆘 SUPPORT 🆘

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

✍️ AUTHOR ✍️

📜 MODIFICATION HISTORY 📜

⚖️ COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE ⚖️

🌟 `lzip $input_filename_or_reference => $output_filename_or_reference [, OPTS]`

💜 The `$input_filename_or_reference` parameter

💖 The `$output_filename_or_reference` parameter