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+
+# Compress::Bzip2
+
+### DESCRIPTION
+
+This module provides a Compress::Zlib like Perl interface to the bzip2
+library.  It uses the low level interface to the bzip2 algorithm, and
+reimplements all high level routines.
+
+### What is Bzip2 ?
+
+bzip2 is a portable lossless data compression library written in ANSI C.
+It offers pretty fast compression and fast decompression.
+bzip2 has very good results, if you want to compress ASCII Documents.
+
+bzip2 is probably not great for streaming compression.  It fills it's
+internal buffer, which depending of parameters is between 100k and 900k
+in size, before it outputs ANY compressed data.  It works best compressing
+an entire document.
+
+Streaming decompression on the other hand, gives a steady torrent of bytes.
+
+### What is Compress::Bzip2 ?
+
+Compress::Bzip2 provided early bzip2 bindings for Perl5 compatible to
+the old Compress::Zlib library. See Compress::Raw::Bzip2 for the new API
+compatible with IO::Compress.
+
+It's my intent to make this package like the Compress::Zlib package, so
+that code that uses one can fairly easily use the other.  The perlxs stuff
+that's visible to perl has methods that have the same names as their
+Compress::Zlib counterparts, except that the "g" is changed to a "b".
+
+Most code that uses Compress::Zlib should be able to use this package.
+Simply change
+```
+
+   $gz = Compress::Zlib::gzopen( "filename", "w" );
+   
+```
+
+to
+```
+
+   $gz = Compress::Bzip2::gzopen( "filename", "w" );
+  ```
+
+I made aliases of all the Compress::Zlib functions.  Some of them don't
+return anything useful, like crc32 or adler32, cause bzip2 doesn't
+do that sort of thing.  Take a look at t/070-gzcomp.t and t/071-gzuncomp.t.
+
+Bug fixes and other feedback are welcome.
+
+### Copyright
+
+bzip2
+
+**Julian Seward**, j s e w a r d   a t   a c m . o r g
+
+Compress-Bzip2 prior to 2.0 is distributed under the terms of the
+GNU General Public License (GPL).  See the file COPYING.
+
+Since version 2.0 Compress-Bzip2 is dual-licensed.
+You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl
+itself, either Perl version 5.8.3 or, at your option, any later
+version of Perl 5 you may have available.
+
+
+### Many Thanks to:
+
+
+**Author of bzip2**
+
+Julian Seward, j s e w a r d   a t   a c m . o r g
+
+Cambridge, UK
+
+http://sources.redhat.com/bzip2
+
+**Author of Compress::Zlib**
+
+Paul Marquess, p m q s   a t   c p a n . o r g
+
+http://www.cpan.org
+
+**Author of 1.x Compress::Bzip2 (1999)**
+
+Gawdi Azem <azemgi@rupert.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de>
+
+(last known email, no longer valid)
+
+**Helped out with win32 compatibility**
+
+Sisyphus, s i s y p h u s 1   a t   o p t u s n e t . c o m . a u
+
+**Author of Compress::Bzip2 1.03**
+
+Marco "Kiko" Carnut,
+ 
+k i k o   a t   t e m p e s t . c o m . b r
+