JCZ - Just Compress Zip (Rust Implementation)

A unified command-line compression utility written in Rust, providing a consistent interface for multiple compression formats.

Features

• Multi-Format Support: GZIP, BZIP2, XZ, TAR, and compound formats (TGZ, TBZ2, TXZ)
• Parallel Processing: Concurrent compression/decompression of multiple files using Rayon
• Timestamp Options: Add timestamps to output filenames (date, datetime, or nanoseconds)
• File Collection: Combine multiple files into single archives
• Automatic Format Detection: Smart decompression of compound formats
• Original File Preservation: Always keeps original files intact
• Configurable Compression Levels: 1-9 for supported algorithms

Installation

From Source

cargo build --release
sudo cp target/release/jcz /usr/local/bin/

Usage

Basic Compression

# Compress with GZIP
jcz -c gzip file.txt

# Compress with BZIP2 at level 9
jcz -c bzip2 -l 9 file.txt

# Create TAR archive
jcz -c tar directory/

Compound Formats

# Create .tar.gz
jcz -c tgz directory/

# Create .tar.bz2
jcz -c tbz2 file1.txt file2.txt

# Create .tar.xz
jcz -c txz myfiles/

Decompression

# Decompress any supported format
jcz -d archive.tar.gz

# Decompress multiple files
jcz -d file1.gz file2.bz2 file3.xz

Advanced Features

# Add timestamp to output filename
jcz -c gzip -t 2 file.txt
# Output: file.txt_20251101_121019.gz

# Move compressed files to directory
jcz -c gzip -C /backups/ *.txt

# Collect files into archive with parent directory
jcz -c tgz -a myarchive file1.txt file2.txt dir/

# Collect files without parent directory wrapper
jcz -c tgz -A myarchive file1.txt file2.txt

Options

-d, --decompress                   Decompress mode
-c, --command <COMMAND>            Compression command [default: tgz]
-l, --level <LEVEL>                Compression level (1-9) [default: 6]
-C, --move-to <MOVE_TO>            Move compressed file to specified directory
-a, --collect <COLLECT>            Collect files into archive (with parent directory)
-A, --collect-flat <COLLECT_FLAT>  Collect files into archive (flat, without parent directory)
-t, --timestamp <TIMESTAMP>        Timestamp option: 0=none, 1=date, 2=datetime, 3=nanoseconds [default: 0]
-h, --help                         Print help
-V, --version                      Print version

Supported Commands

• gzip - GZIP compression (.gz)
• bzip2 - BZIP2 compression (.bz2)
• xz - XZ compression (.xz)
• tar - TAR archive (.tar)
• tgz - TAR + GZIP (.tar.gz)
• tbz2 - TAR + BZIP2 (.tar.bz2)
• txz - TAR + XZ (.tar.xz)

Environment Variables

• JCDBG - Control logging verbosity
  • error - Show only errors
  • warn - Show warnings and errors
  • info - Show info, warnings, and errors (default)
  • debug - Show all log messages including debug

JCDBG=debug jcz -c gzip file.txt

Architecture

The implementation follows a modular design:

• Core Module: Trait definitions, error types, configuration structures
• Compressor Modules: Individual implementations for GZIP, BZIP2, XZ, TAR
• Operations Module: High-level operations (compress, decompress, compound, collection)
• Utils Module: File system utilities, logging, validation, timestamp generation
• CLI Module: Command-line argument parsing and command execution

Design Highlights

• Trait-based polymorphism: All compressors implement the Compressor trait
• Error handling: Comprehensive error types using Rust's Result<T, E> pattern
• Concurrency: Safe parallel processing with Rayon's work-stealing algorithm
• RAII: Automatic cleanup of temporary files using guard patterns
• Zero-cost abstractions: Generic and trait-based design with no runtime overhead

Dependencies

• clap - Command-line argument parsing
• rayon - Data parallelism
• log / env_logger - Logging infrastructure
• chrono - Timestamp generation

System Requirements

• Rust 2021 edition or later
• System utilities: gzip, bzip2, xz, tar, mv, cp, readlink

Documentation

• Software Requirements Specification
• Software Design Document

License

MIT