new

Creates a new deflate stream for compression. If a given argument is nil, the default value of that argument is used.

The level sets the compression level for the deflate stream between 0 (no compression) and 9 (best compression. The following constants have been defined to make code more readable:

• Zlib::NO_COMPRESSION = 0

• Zlib::BEST_SPEED = 1

• Zlib::DEFAULT_COMPRESSION = 6

• Zlib::BEST_COMPRESSION = 9

The window_bits sets the size of the history buffer and should be between 8 and 15. Larger values of this parameter result in better compression at the expense of memory usage.

The mem_level specifies how much memory should be allocated for the internal compression state. 1 uses minimum memory but is slow and reduces compression ratio while 9 uses maximum memory for optimal speed. The default value is 8. Two constants are defined:

• Zlib::DEF_MEM_LEVEL

• Zlib::MAX_MEM_LEVEL

The strategy sets the deflate compression strategy. The following strategies are available:

Zlib::DEFAULT_STRATEGY

For normal data

Zlib::FILTERED

For data produced by a filter or predictor

Zlib::FIXED

Prevents dynamic Huffman codes

Zlib::HUFFMAN_ONLY

Prevents string matching

Zlib::RLE

Designed for better compression of PNG image data

See the constants for further description.

Examples

Basic

open "compressed.file", "w+" do |io|
  io << Zlib::Deflate.new.deflate(File.read("big.file"))
end

Custom compression

open "compressed.file", "w+" do |compressed_io|
  deflate = Zlib::Deflate.new(Zlib::BEST_COMPRESSION,
                              Zlib::MAX_WBITS,
                              Zlib::MAX_MEM_LEVEL,
                              Zlib::HUFFMAN_ONLY)

  begin
    open "big.file" do |big_io|
      until big_io.eof? do
        compressed_io << zd.deflate(big_io.read(16384))
      end
    end
  ensure
    deflate.close
  end
end

While this example will work, for best optimization review the flags for your specific time, memory usage and output space requirements.