[R] gzfile() produces large files

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Wed, 27 Jun 2001, Uwe Ligges wrote:

> I observed some strange results playing around with gzfile() [R-1.3.0,
> WinNT 4.0]:
>
> At first
>
>   x <- 1:1000
>   write(x, file = "c:/temp.txt")
>
> results in a file of about 4 kB. But
>
>   my.con <- gzfile("c:/temp.gz", open = "w")
>   write(x, file = my.con)
>   close(my.con)
>
> results in a file of about 16 kB.
>
> I expected a reduction of the size. Anyone who can tell me what went
> wrong?

My experiments concur: I do get a 15913 byte file and it is a valid gzip
file.

I've used this much more to read compressed files than write them.
I will take a closer look at the zlib specs when I have time.

Brian

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

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