[Chapter 1] 1.8 The java.util.zip Package

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| Chapter 1 Introduction |

## 1.8 The java.util.zip Package

The `java.util.zip` package is new in Java 1.1. It contains classes that provide support for general-purpose data compression and decompression using the ZLIB compression algorithms. The important classes in `java.util.zip` are those that provide the means to read and write data that is compatible with the popular GZIP and ZIP formats: `GZIPInputStream`, `GZIPOutputStream`, `ZipInputStream`, and `ZipOutputStream`.

The GZIP and ZIP classes are easy to use because they subclass `java.io. FilterInputStream` and `java.io.FilterOutputStream`. While a GZIP file is simply a stream of compressed data, a ZIP file, or archive, can contain multiple compressed files. A `ZipEntry` object represents each compressed file in the archive. The `ZipFile` class is provided as a convenience for reading an archive; it allows nonsequential access to the entries in a ZIP file while the `ZipInputStream` class provides only sequential access.

The remainder of the classes in `java.util.zip` support the GZIP and ZIP classes. The generic `Deflater` and `Inflater` classes implement the ZLIB algorithms; they are used by `DeflaterOutputStream` and `InflaterInputStream` to decompress and compress data. The `Checksum` interface and the classes that implement it, `Adler32` and `CRC32`, define algorithms that generate checksums from stream data. These checksums are used by the `CheckedInputStream` and `CheckedOutputStream` classes.

See Chapter 18, The java.util.zip Package, for complete reference material on all of the classes in the `java.util.zip` package.

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