libz

libZ refers to the zlib compression library. It is a free and unencumbered software library that provides in-memory compression and decompression functions. Zlib was created by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler. It is widely used in many software applications and operating systems due to its efficiency and portability.

The primary purpose of zlib is to compress data, reducing its size without losing information. This is achieved through the DEFLATE algorithm, a combination of the LZ77 algorithm and Huffman coding. The library can also decompress data that has been compressed using DEFLATE. Zlib is designed to be highly portable and can be compiled and run on a wide variety of platforms and architectures.

Beyond its core compression and decompression capabilities, zlib offers functions for calculating cyclic redundancy checks (CRCs) and for performing Adler-32 checksums. These checksums are useful for detecting accidental data corruption. The library is typically used by developers to integrate data compression features into their own applications, such as file archiving tools, network protocols, and image file formats. Its widespread adoption has made it a de facto standard for many compression needs in software development.