Introduction
I guess it is too late, but they finally put it. A compression/decompression api in windows which is easy to use. And, with my class, even easier.
Background
The API is a simple set of functions that allow compression or decompression of data. Windows supports a number of algorithms (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh920921(v=vs.85).aspx) which we can select in our constructor. Windows also supports block-mode, if you want to control the compressor, which is not a feature in our quick class.
Because the API exists only in Windows 8, all our class calls are dynamic (incidentally, the call uses the template from my One-Line call article) . You can check the static member COMPRESSIONAPI::Available() to see if the API is available. If the API is not available, constructing the object will throw.
Using the code
if (!COMPRESSIONAPI::Available())
BlowThisPC();
COMPRESSIONAPI c(COMPRESS_ALGORITHM_LZMS);
vector<char> x;
x.resize(10000);
strcpy_s(x.data(),10000,"Hello there");
vector<char> rs;
c.Compress(x.data(),10000,rs);
vector<char> rs2;
c.Decompress(rs.data(),rs.size(),rs2);
Easy. You have the constructor (which specifies the compression algorithm, in this case COMPRESS_ALGORITHM_LZMS. Then you have 2 member functions, Compress and Decompress. Both take the buffer to work on, it's size, and a vector<char> to put the result. They return S_OK on success and E_FAIL on error.
Internally, my class tests the API in order to find out the exact size neeeded for the buffer.
History
16 - 2 - 2015 : First Release
