Thanks for the pointers, especially LZW Demystified. I've tried Compress::LZW, and as the documentation says, it does not yet support compress(1)'s .Z files.

I've also tried compressing a small file and attempting to decode it by hand with no success. Here's a challenge: could someone show how the algorithm decompresses the following: 

/home/test: od -bc foo.Z
0000000 037 235 220 124 320 224 001 321 346 315 033 067 040 322 314 041
         037 235 220   T 320 224 001 321 346 315 033   7     322 314   !
0000020 030 206 314 300 067 146 100 214 021 130 146 116 031 005
         030 206 314 300   7   f   @ 214 021   X   f   N 031 005
0000036
/home/test:

--
I'm Not Just Another Perl Hacker

In reply to Re^2: Wanted: perl equivalent of Solaris compress utility by rinceWind
in thread Wanted: perl equivalent of Solaris compress utility by rinceWind

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