Compression

Specifies the compression algorithm: deflate, zlib, bzip2, or lzw. Note that ppmd is deprecated and should not be used. It was only available for 32-bit systems and specifically used the J variant. Please transition to one of the recommended algorithms.

This property specifies the character encoding used to represent text as bytes for compression and decompression. By default, it uses the computer's ANSI charset, such as Windows-1252 for locales like the United States, United Kingdom, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

Most applications are advised to set this property to UTF-8. Chilkat plans to change its default to UTF-8 in a future major version to align with current standards. The current default of ANSI stems from a time when UTF-8 was not widely adopted.

If set to a file path, this property logs the LastErrorText of each Chilkat method or property call to the specified file. This logging helps identify the context and history of Chilkat calls leading up to any crash or hang, aiding in debugging.

Enabling the VerboseLogging property provides more detailed information. This property is mainly used for debugging rare instances where a Chilkat method call causes a hang or crash, which should generally not happen.

Possible causes of hangs include:

• A timeout property set to 0, indicating an infinite timeout.
• A hang occurring within an event callback in the application code.
• An internal bug in the Chilkat code causing the hang.

This property allows for customization of the compression level for the deflate and zlib compression algoirthms. (zlib is just the deflate algorithm with a zlib header.) A value of 0 = no compression, while 9 = maximum compression. The default is 6.

Controls the encoding expected by methods ending in ENC, such as CompressBytesENC. Valid values are base64, hex, url, and quoted-printable. Compression methods ending in ENC return the binary compressed data as an encoded string using this encoding. Decompress methods expect the input string to be this encoding.

This property applies to FirstChunk and LastChunk aware compression and decompression methods. It signifies that the data being compressed is the first of multiple chunks.

The default value is 1.

When both FirstChunk and LastChunk are set to 1, it means the entire amount of data to be compressed or decompressed is presented in a single call.

The interval in milliseconds between each AbortCheck event callback, which enables an application to abort certain method calls before they complete. By default, HeartbeatMs is set to 0, meaning no AbortCheck event callbacks will trigger.

This property is mainly used in SQL Server stored procedures to retrieve binary data from the last method call that returned binary data. It is only accessible if Chilkat.Global.KeepBinaryResult is set to 1. This feature allows for the retrieval of large varbinary results in an SQL Server environment, which has restrictions on returning large data via method calls, though temp tables can handle binary properties.

This property applies to FirstChunk and LastChunk aware compression and decompression methods. It signifies that the data being compressed is the last of multiple chunks.

The default value is 1.

When both FirstChunk and LastChunk are set to 1, it means the entire amount of data to be compressed or decompressed is presented in a single call.

Provides HTML-formatted information about the last called method or property. If a method call fails or behaves unexpectedly, check this property for details. Note that information is available regardless of the method call's success.

Provides plain text information about the last called method or property. If a method call fails or behaves unexpectedly, check this property for details. Note that information is available regardless of the method call's success.

Provides XML-formatted information about the last called method or property. If a method call fails or behaves unexpectedly, check this property for details. Note that information is available regardless of the method call's success.

Indicates the success or failure of the most recent method call: 1 means success, 0 means failure. This property remains unchanged by property setters or getters. This method is present to address challenges in checking for null or Nothing returns in certain programming languages.

In SQL Server stored procedures, this property holds the string return value of the most recent method call that returns a string. It is accessible only when Chilkat.Global.KeepStringResult is set to TRUE. SQL Server has limitations on string lengths returned from methods and properties, but temp tables can be used to access large strings.

The length, in characters, of the string contained in the LastStringResult property.

This is a catch-all property to be used for uncommon needs. This property defaults to the empty string and should typically remain empty.

Can be set to a list of the following comma separated keywords:

• Crypt2CompressHdr - Duplicates the compression and decompression as implemented in the deprecated and removed Crypt2 compression functions.

If set to 1, then the contents of LastErrorText (or LastErrorXml, or LastErrorHtml) may contain more verbose information. The default value is 0. Verbose logging should only be used for debugging. The potentially large quantity of logged information may adversely affect peformance.

Version of the component/library, such as "10.1.0"

Compresses the data contained in bd. This method is not FirstChunk/LastChunk aware.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

Creates an asynchronous task to call the CompressBd method with the arguments provided.

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns Nothing on failure

This method compresses the data in bdIn without modifying it and appends the compressed data to bdOut. It is also FirstChunk/LastChunk aware.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

Creates an asynchronous task to call the CompressBd2 method with the arguments provided.

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns Nothing on failure

Compresses byte data.

This method is FirstChunk/LastChunk aware.

Returns a zero-length byte array (as a Variant) on failure.
An empty array will have a UBound of -1 meaning 0 elements.

Creates an asynchronous task to call the CompressBytes method with the arguments provided.

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns Nothing on failure

Compresses bytes and returns the compressed data encoded to a string. The encoding (hex, base64, etc.) is determined by the EncodingMode property setting.

Returns Nothing on failure

Creates an asynchronous task to call the CompressBytesENC method with the arguments provided.

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns Nothing on failure

Performs file-to-file compression and encryption. Files of any size may be compressed because the file is compressed and encrypted internally in streaming mode.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

Creates an asynchronous task to call the CompressEncryptFile method with the arguments provided.

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns Nothing on failure

Performs file-to-file compression. Files of any size may be compressed because the file is compressed internally in streaming mode.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

Creates an asynchronous task to call the CompressFile method with the arguments provided.

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns Nothing on failure

Compresses the contents of sb and appends the compressed bytes to binData.

This method is FirstChunk/LastChunk aware.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

Creates an asynchronous task to call the CompressSb method with the arguments provided.

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns Nothing on failure

Compresses a string and appends to bd. The byte representation (character encoding) of the actual bytes to be compressed is determined by the Charset property. This method is FirstChunk / LastChunk aware.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

Creates an asynchronous task to call the CompressStr method with the arguments provided.

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns Nothing on failure

Compresses a stream. Internally, the strm's source is read, compressed, and the compressed data written to the strm's sink. It does this in streaming fashion. Extremely large or even infinite streams can be compressed with stable ungrowing memory usage.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

Creates an asynchronous task to call the CompressStream method with the arguments provided.

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns Nothing on failure

Compresses a string.

This method is FirstChunk/LastChunk aware.

Returns a zero-length byte array (as a Variant) on failure.
An empty array will have a UBound of -1 meaning 0 elements.

Creates an asynchronous task to call the CompressString method with the arguments provided.

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns Nothing on failure

Compresses a string and returns the compressed data encoded to a string. The output encoding (hex, base64, etc.) is determined by the EncodingMode property setting. This method is NOT FirstChunk/LastChunk aware.

Returns Nothing on failure

Creates an asynchronous task to call the CompressStringENC method with the arguments provided.

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns Nothing on failure

Decompresses the data contained in bd. This method is NOT FirstChunk/LastChunk aware.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

Creates an asynchronous task to call the DecompressBd method with the arguments provided.

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns Nothing on failure

This method decompresses the data in bdIn without modifying it and appends the decompressed data to bdOut. It is also FirstChunk/LastChunk aware.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

Creates an asynchronous task to call the DecompressBd2 method with the arguments provided.

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns Nothing on failure

This method decompresses bytes.

This method is FirstChunk/LastChunk aware.

Returns a zero-length byte array (as a Variant) on failure.
An empty array will have a UBound of -1 meaning 0 elements.

Creates an asynchronous task to call the DecompressBytes method with the arguments provided.

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns Nothing on failure

The opposite of CompressBytesENC. encodedCompressedData contains the compressed data as an encoded string (hex, base64, etc) as specified by the EncodingMode property setting.

Returns a zero-length byte array (as a Variant) on failure.
An empty array will have a UBound of -1 meaning 0 elements.

Creates an asynchronous task to call the DecompressBytesENC method with the arguments provided.

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns Nothing on failure

Performs file-to-file decompression (the opposite of CompressFile). Internally the file is decompressed in streaming mode which allows files of any size to be decompressed.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

Creates an asynchronous task to call the DecompressFile method with the arguments provided.

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns Nothing on failure

Decompresses the contents of binData and appends the decompressed string to sb.

This method is FirstChunk/LastChunk aware.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

Creates an asynchronous task to call the DecompressSb method with the arguments provided.

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns Nothing on failure

Decompresses a stream. Internally, the strm's source is read, decompressed, and the decompressed data written to the strm's sink. It does this in streaming fashion. Extremely large or even infinite streams can be decompressed with stable ungrowing memory usage.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

Creates an asynchronous task to call the DecompressStream method with the arguments provided.

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns Nothing on failure

Takes compressed bytes, decompresses, and returns the resulting string.

This method is FirstChunk/LastChunk aware.

Returns Nothing on failure

The opposite of CompressStringENC. encodedCompressedData contains the compressed data as an encoded string (hex, base64, etc) as specified by the EncodingMode property setting. This method is NOT FirstChunk/LastChunk aware.

Returns Nothing on failure

Creates an asynchronous task to call the DecompressStringENC method with the arguments provided.

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns Nothing on failure

Performs file-to-file decryption and decompression.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

Creates an asynchronous task to call the DecryptDecompressFile method with the arguments provided.

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns Nothing on failure

Loads the caller of the task's async method.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

Enables a method call to be aborted by triggering the AbortCheck event at intervals defined by the HeartbeatMs property. If HeartbeatMs is set to its default value of 0, no events will occur. For instance, set HeartbeatMs to 200 to trigger 5 AbortCheck events per second.

VB6 Event callback implementation:

Important: Event callbacks from asynchronous method calls are generally not possible from the ActiveX. See VB6 Event Callbacks

Dim WithEvents myCompression As ChilkatCompression

Private Sub myCompression_AbortCheck(abort As Long)

	'Insert application code here.

End Sub

This provides the percentage completion for any method involving network communications or time-consuming processing, assuming the progress can be measured as a percentage. This event is triggered only when it's possible and logical to express the operation's progress as a percentage. The pctDone argument will range from 1 to 100. For methods that finish quickly, the number of PercentDone callbacks may vary, but the final callback will have pctDone equal to 100. For longer operations, callbacks will not exceed one per percentage point (e.g., 1, 2, 3, ..., 98, 99, 100).

The PercentDone callback also acts as an AbortCheck event. For fast methods where PercentDone fires, an AbortCheck event may not trigger since the PercentDone callback already provides an opportunity to abort. For longer operations, where time between PercentDone callbacks is extended, AbortCheck callbacks enable more responsive operation termination.

To abort the operation, set the abort output argument to 1. This will cause the method to terminate and return a failure status or corresponding failure value.

VB6 Event callback implementation:

Important: Event callbacks from asynchronous method calls are generally not possible from the ActiveX. See VB6 Event Callbacks

Dim WithEvents myCompression As ChilkatCompression

Private Sub myCompression_PercentDone(ByVal pctDone As Long, abort As Long)

	'Insert application code here.

End Sub

This event callback provides tag name/value pairs that detail what occurs during a method call. To discover existing tag names, create code to handle the event, emit the pairs, and review them. Most tag names are self-explanatory.

VB6 Event callback implementation:

Important: Event callbacks from asynchronous method calls are generally not possible from the ActiveX. See VB6 Event Callbacks

Dim WithEvents myCompression As ChilkatCompression

Private Sub myCompression_ProgressInfo(ByVal name As String, ByVal value As String)

	'Insert application code here.

End Sub

Called from the background thread when an asynchronous task completes.

VB6 Event callback implementation:

Important: Event callbacks from asynchronous method calls are generally not possible from the ActiveX. See VB6 Event Callbacks

Dim WithEvents myCompression As ChilkatCompression

Private Sub myCompression_TaskCompleted(task As ChilkatTask)

	'Insert application code here.

End Sub

The Begin*, More*, and End* methods are replaced with the FirstChunk and LastChunk properties used in combination with FirstChunk/LastChunk aware methods, such as CompressStr and DecompressBd2 .

Large amounts of binary byte data may be compressed in chunks by first calling BeginCompressBytes, followed by 0 or more calls to MoreCompressedBytes, and ending with a final call to EndCompressBytes. Each call returns 0 or more bytes of compressed data which may be output to a compressed data stream (such as a file, socket, etc.).

Returns a zero-length byte array (as a Variant) on failure.
An empty array will have a UBound of -1 meaning 0 elements.

The Begin*, More*, and End* methods are replaced with the FirstChunk and LastChunk properties used in combination with FirstChunk/LastChunk aware methods, such as CompressStr and DecompressBd2.

Large amounts of binary byte data may be compressed in chunks by first calling BeginCompressBytesENC, followed by 0 or more calls to MoreCompressedBytesENC, and ending with a final call to EndCompressBytesENC. Each call returns 0 or more characters of compressed data (encoded as a string according to the EncodingMode property setting) which may be output to a compressed data stream (such as a file, socket, etc.).

Returns Nothing on failure

The Begin*, More*, and End* methods are replaced with the FirstChunk and LastChunk properties used in combination with FirstChunk/LastChunk aware methods, such as CompressStr and DecompressBd2.

Large amounts of string data may be compressed in chunks by first calling BeginCompressString, followed by 0 or more calls to MoreCompressedString, and ending with a final call to EndCompressString. Each call returns 0 or more bytes of compressed data which may be output to a compressed data stream (such as a file, socket, etc.).

Returns a zero-length byte array (as a Variant) on failure.
An empty array will have a UBound of -1 meaning 0 elements.

The Begin*, More*, and End* methods are replaced with the FirstChunk and LastChunk properties used in combination with FirstChunk/LastChunk aware methods, such as CompressStr and DecompressBd2.

Large amounts of string data may be compressed in chunks by first calling BeginCompressStringENC, followed by 0 or more calls to MoreCompressedStringENC, and ending with a final call to EndCompressStringENC. Each call returns 0 or more characters of compressed data (encoded as a string according to the EncodingMode property setting) which may be output to a compressed data stream (such as a file, socket, etc.).

Returns Nothing on failure

The Begin*, More*, and End* methods are replaced with the FirstChunk and LastChunk properties used in combination with FirstChunk/LastChunk aware methods, such as CompressStr and DecompressBd2.

A compressed data stream may be decompressed in chunks by first calling BeginDecompressBytes, followed by 0 or more calls to MoreDecompressedBytes, and ending with a final call to EndDecompressBytes. Each call returns 0 or more bytes of decompressed data.

Returns a zero-length byte array (as a Variant) on failure.
An empty array will have a UBound of -1 meaning 0 elements.

The Begin*, More*, and End* methods are replaced with the FirstChunk and LastChunk properties used in combination with FirstChunk/LastChunk aware methods, such as CompressStr and DecompressBd2.

The input to this method is an encoded string containing compressed data. The EncodingMode property should be set prior to calling this method. The input string is decoded according to the EncodingMode (hex, base64, etc.) and then decompressed.

A compressed data stream may be decompressed in chunks by first calling BeginDecompressBytesENC, followed by 0 or more calls to MoreDecompressedBytesENC, and ending with a final call to EndDecompressBytesENC. Each call returns 0 or more bytes of decompressed data.

Returns a zero-length byte array (as a Variant) on failure.
An empty array will have a UBound of -1 meaning 0 elements.

The Begin*, More*, and End* methods are replaced with the FirstChunk and LastChunk properties used in combination with FirstChunk/LastChunk aware methods, such as CompressStr and DecompressBd2.

A compressed data stream may be decompressed in chunks by first calling BeginDecompressString, followed by 0 or more calls to MoreDecompressedString, and ending with a final call to EndDecompressString. Each call returns 0 or more characters of decompressed text.

Returns Nothing on failure

The Begin*, More*, and End* methods are replaced with the FirstChunk and LastChunk properties used in combination with FirstChunk/LastChunk aware methods, such as CompressStr and DecompressBd2.

The input to this method is an encoded string containing compressed data. The EncodingMode property should be set prior to calling this method. The input string is decoded according to the EncodingMode (hex, base64, etc.) and then decompressed.

A compressed data stream may be decompressed in chunks by first calling BeginDecompressStringENC, followed by 0 or more calls to MoreDecompressedStringENC, and ending with a final call to EndDecompressStringENC. Each call returns 0 or more characters of decompressed text.

Returns Nothing on failure

The Begin*, More*, and End* methods are replaced with the FirstChunk and LastChunk properties used in combination with FirstChunk/LastChunk aware methods, such as CompressStr and DecompressBd2.

Must be callled to finalize a compression stream. Returns any remaining (buffered) compressed data.

(See BeginCompressBytes)

Returns a zero-length byte array (as a Variant) on failure.
An empty array will have a UBound of -1 meaning 0 elements.

The Begin*, More*, and End* methods are replaced with the FirstChunk and LastChunk properties used in combination with FirstChunk/LastChunk aware methods, such as CompressStr and DecompressBd2.

Must be callled to finalize a compression stream. Returns any remaining (buffered) compressed data.

(See BeginCompressBytesENC)

Returns Nothing on failure

The Begin*, More*, and End* methods are replaced with the FirstChunk and LastChunk properties used in combination with FirstChunk/LastChunk aware methods, such as CompressStr and DecompressBd2.

Must be callled to finalize a compression stream. Returns any remaining (buffered) compressed data.

(See BeginCompressString)

Returns a zero-length byte array (as a Variant) on failure.
An empty array will have a UBound of -1 meaning 0 elements.

The Begin*, More*, and End* methods are replaced with the FirstChunk and LastChunk properties used in combination with FirstChunk/LastChunk aware methods, such as CompressStr and DecompressBd2.

Must be callled to finalize a compression stream. Returns any remaining (buffered) compressed data.

(See BeginCompressStringENC)

Returns Nothing on failure

The Begin*, More*, and End* methods are replaced with the FirstChunk and LastChunk properties used in combination with FirstChunk/LastChunk aware methods, such as CompressStr and DecompressBd2.

Called to finalize the decompression stream and return any remaining (buffered) decompressed data.

(See BeginDecompressBytes)

Returns a zero-length byte array (as a Variant) on failure.
An empty array will have a UBound of -1 meaning 0 elements.

The Begin*, More*, and End* methods are replaced with the FirstChunk and LastChunk properties used in combination with FirstChunk/LastChunk aware methods, such as CompressStr and DecompressBd2.

Called to finalize the decompression stream and return any remaining (buffered) decompressed data.

The input to this method is an encoded string containing compressed data. The EncodingMode property should be set prior to calling this method. The input string is decoded according to the EncodingMode (hex, base64, etc.) and then decompressed.

(See BeginDecompressBytesENC)

Returns a zero-length byte array (as a Variant) on failure.
An empty array will have a UBound of -1 meaning 0 elements.

The Begin*, More*, and End* methods are replaced with the FirstChunk and LastChunk properties used in combination with FirstChunk/LastChunk aware methods, such as CompressStr and DecompressBd2.

Called to finalize the decompression stream and return any remaining (buffered) decompressed data.

(See BeginDecompressString)

Returns Nothing on failure

The Begin*, More*, and End* methods are replaced with the FirstChunk and LastChunk properties used in combination with FirstChunk/LastChunk aware methods, such as CompressStr and DecompressBd2.

Called to finalize the decompression stream and return any remaining (buffered) decompressed data.

The input to this method is an encoded string containing compressed data. The EncodingMode property should be set prior to calling this method. The input string is decoded according to the EncodingMode (hex, base64, etc.) and then decompressed.

(See BeginDecompressStringENC)

Returns Nothing on failure

(See BeginCompressBytes)

Returns a zero-length byte array (as a Variant) on failure.
An empty array will have a UBound of -1 meaning 0 elements.

(See BeginCompressBytesENC)

Returns Nothing on failure

(See BeginCompressString)

Returns a zero-length byte array (as a Variant) on failure.
An empty array will have a UBound of -1 meaning 0 elements.

(See BeginCompressStringENC)

Returns Nothing on failure

(See BeginDecompressBytes)

Returns a zero-length byte array (as a Variant) on failure.
An empty array will have a UBound of -1 meaning 0 elements.

The input to this method is an encoded string containing compressed data. The EncodingMode property should be set prior to calling this method. The input string is decoded according to the EncodingMode (hex, base64, etc.) and then decompressed.

(See BeginDecompressBytesENC)

Returns a zero-length byte array (as a Variant) on failure.
An empty array will have a UBound of -1 meaning 0 elements.

(See BeginDecompressString)

Returns Nothing on failure

The input to this method is an encoded string containing compressed data. The EncodingMode property should be set prior to calling this method. The input string is decoded according to the EncodingMode (hex, base64, etc.) and then decompressed.

(See BeginDecompressStringENC)

Returns Nothing on failure