zoo is a

data compression In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compression ...

program and format developed by Rahul Dhesi in the mid-1980s. The format is based on the LZW compression algorithm and compressed files are identified by the .zoo file extension. It is no longer widely used. Program source code was originally published on the comp.sources.misc

Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...

newsgroup, and was compatible with a variety of

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...

operating systems. Binaries were also published for the

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

and

AmigaOS AmigaOS is a family of proprietary native operating systems of the Amiga and AmigaOne personal computers. It was developed first by Commodore International and introduced with the launch of the first Amiga, the Amiga 1000, in 1985. Early version ...

user communities.

Zoo features

Zoo archives can store multiple "generations" of a file; if files are added to an archive with the same pathname yet more recent date, if generations are enabled for the archive the older version(s) will be retained (with a semicolon and version number, similar to version numbers in the VMS and RT-11 operating systems) as the new file is added. This allows files that are frequently modified to be backed up in such a way as to allow access to previous versions (up to the version limit chosen) from one archive.

External links

zoo 2.10 source

unzoo
- zoo archive extractor, source included Data compression Archive formats {{software-type-stub