What do you think about when I tell a word "compression"? If you currently study computer science, you probably think about some details of algorithms like RLE, Huffman coding or Burrows-Wheeler transform. If not, then you surely associate compression with archive file formats such as ZIP and RAR. But there is something in between - a kind of libraries that let you compress some data - implement a compression algorithm but do not provide ready file format to pack multiple files and directories into one archive. Such library is useful in gamedev for creating VFS (Virtual File System). Probably the most popular one is zlib - a free C library that implements Deflate algorithm. I've recently discovered another one - LZMA. Its SDK is also free (public domain) and the basic version is a small C library (C++, C# and Java API-s are also available, as well as some additional tools). The library uses LZMA algorithm (Lempel–Ziv–Markov chain algorithm, same as in 7z archive format), which has better compression ratio than Deflate AFAIK. So I've decided to start using it. Here is what I've learned:
If you decide to use only the C API, it's enough to add some C and H files to your project - the ones from LZMASDK\C directory (without subdirectories). Alternatively you can compile them as a static library.
There is a little bit of theory behind the LZMA SDK API. First, the term props means a 5-byte header where the library stores some settings. It must be saved with compressed data to be given to the library before decompression.
Next, the dictionary size. It is the size of a temporary memory block used during compression and decompression. Dictionary size can be set during compression and is then saved inside props. Library uses dictionary of same size during decompression. Default dictionary size is 16 MB so IMHO it's worth changing, especially as I haven't noticed any meaninful drop in compression rate when set it to 6