Lbzip2 is a Pthreads-based parallel bzip2/bunzip2 utility, with a command line resembling that of the original bzip2. It is usable both on its own and as a filter passed to GNU tar with the –use-compress-program option. It isn’t restricted to regular files on input nor output. Successful splitting for decompression isn’t guaranteed, just very likely (and failure is detected). Lbzip2 strives to be portable by requiring UNIX 98 APIs only, besides an unmodified libbz2.
Changes: Sanity checks were added to both decompressors. Input FILE operands were removed. The –keep and –force options were added. Owner, group, permission bits, access time, modification time are copied to regular output files. Logging was cleaned up and internally categorized into INFO, WARNING, and FATAL levels. A separate exit status was introduced for the case when a warning message was printed. The decompressor robustness tests were re-executed. The author has finally replaced bzip2 with lbzip2 on his system.
Release Tags: Major feature enhancements
Tags: Archiving, Compression, Beta
Licenses: GPLv3, GPLv2, GPL