use Compress::Zlib;
   my $str_to_compress='a big string';
   $compressed_str=compress($str_to_compress[,1]);
   #original syntax on cpan for the two functions
   #$dest = compress($source [, $level] ) ;
   #$dest = uncompress($source) ;
   $decompressed_str=uncompress($compressed_str);
   print $decompressed_str;