.TH "compression_overview" 3 "Thu May 29 2014" "Version 4.0.0a" "Coin" \" -*- nroff -*-
.ad l
.nh
.SH NAME
compression_overview \- File compression 
Coin can support reading and writing Inventor and VRML files compressed with either gzip or bzip2 (as of yet - more formats may come in the future)\&. This functionality is of course only enabled when Coin can link with the corresponding compression libraries\&.
.PP
Reading of compressed files happens in a transparent manner - there is nothing the developer has to do to support this\&.
.PP
Writing of compressed files is controlled through the \fBSoOutput::setCompression\fP method\&.
.PP
The list of available compression methods can be fetched with the \fBSoOutput::getAvailableCompressionMethods\fP method\&.
.PP
You can not use file compression together with I/O to memory buffers, except for reading from memory buffers containing gzip-compressed files\&.
.PP
For backwards compatibility with Coin 2\&.0 and Coin 1\&.0, compressed files must not be used\&. Compressed files works only from Coin 2\&.1 and upwards\&.
.PP
\fBSince:\fP
.RS 4
Coin 2\&.1 
.RE
.PP
\fBSee also:\fP
.RS 4
\fBSoOutput::setCompression\fP, \fBSoOutput::getAvailableCompressionMethods\fP 
.RE
.PP