availability of Memory compression routine

[Trent Piepho]

On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, Kwan Wing Keung wrote:
> My question is now whether we have a generic memory compression routine
> that allow the compression of a big memory chunk to a much smaller one
> like that used in "zip" or "compress".  Of course we are talking about
> compression for memory variable inside a standard Fortran program BUT
> NOT the compression in a disk file.

You can just use zlib, the compression library with the gzip algorithm.  It's
standard on all linux systems and a number of programs use it to provide
compression (like compressed ssh tunnels).

There are also other libraries out there.  libbz2 uses the bzip2 algorithm,
and there was one called lzo that is designed to be fast.

But, I've found that even a fast CPU can't compress data faster than a fast
network can send it.  It your only using 100mbit ethernet, your best bet would
be to upgrade to gigabit.