C++ Data Compression Program

[Jordan]

This is a data compression program I wrote which will compress your files (like winzip and winrar), although it does not compress folders. It's not nearly as powerful as .zip or .rar since it uses the Huffman Encoding algorithm which only does well when there are a lot of the same chunks of binary in the file.

GUI Executable
Source Code - I recommend comiling with -O3 -fexpensive-optimizations if you're using GNU GCC. (This will produce a command line application rather than a GUI executable like above; type -help for a list of commands).

If it gives you the message "File would not compress", that means the program wasn't able to make the file size smaller and would have made it larger instead. This is common on small files and on images.

I'd appreciate it if you guys tested it on some files. Let me know if it glitches up on you.

[Jordan]

I made a basic GUI for the application, and I'd appreciate it if someone could download it and see if it works for them. I integrated my code with the Qt framework and I want to know if I've included all the necessary dll's with the application for the program to run on all Windows computers. I've only compiled the application for Windows so don't bother downloading the files if you are using a different OS.

xtriad.comxa.com/applications/HuffmanEncoding/HuffmanGUI.rar

Files you compress will be saved with a .jip extension. To uncompress, simply select the compressed file and press "Decompress".

[moneyman18]

I downloaded it and it says that the "mingwm10.dll" was not found.

[Jordan]

Thanks for testing it. Rather than adding that DLL to the folder, I figured out how to statically compile all the code into one executable so I didn't have to pack 4 DLL's with the executable. I need to figure out how to only compile the code that I need because it's 5 MB which is stupid big for such a small app.

Anyway, just to confirm that it works, could you try downloading it one more time at the new location below? I'd really appreciate it.

xtriad.comxa.com/applications/HuffmanEncoding/HuffmanGUI.rar

[moneyman18]

Seems to work well. There weren't any problems that I could find upon testing it.

[Jordan]

Awesome! Thanks for testing it. It probably didn't compress your files that much, but I have a few ideas for making it better.

And I probably should just use the win32 API rather than Qt for the GUI since it's such a simple app (that's 5 MB...). ;P

[xcessive]

You should compress the download using your algorithm. So when people download it they can never use it, since they dont have the decompression algorithm, since it itself is compressed using its sister algorithm.

[Jordan]

That sounds like a great idea. I should also give the compressed file a cool extension as well, maybe ".defecated".

Once finals are finished I'm going to give the algorithm its own thread so the GUI doesn't freeze up when it's running like it does now.

[xcessive]

Unless of course you run it on an atom CPU, which can only take two threads. I learnt that the hard way. It involved a lot of shouting.

[Jordan]

I assure you I won't be so I won't be having that problem. What were you developing for that had that CPU?

[xcessive]

Pretty much every netbook and super low budget notebook in existence.

[Jordan]

Ah netbooks...I think I've only seen two in my entire life.