> zgz currently forks gzip to generate GNU gzip files, if given the --gnu > option. Doing so relies on GNU gzip to never change its output. Using > an internal gzip library in zgz would ensure that zgz can always > reproduce files even if GNU gzip changes, and would also remove the need > for zgz to fork a separate process.
FWIW, I don't think that the possibility that gzip might change its output in the future is a reason to fork it now. If gzip did change its output, pristine-tar could begin embedding a copy of the old version at that point. But, the fact that we have never found a file produced by an old gzip that cannot be recreated with the current one suggests this is unlikely to happen. And if we did worry about this, we'd need to worry about it happening for tar, too. Avoiding the need to fork gzip is a semi-good reason, though the fork overhead is very insignificant compared to the other CPU used. Your idea about running the compressors from a library and only compressing enough to tell if the right version is being used is a very compelling reason. -- see shy jo
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