SQ(1) SQ(1) NAME sq - squeeze a sorted word list unsq - unsqueeze a sorted word list SYNOPSIS sq < infile > outfile unsq < infile > outfile DESCRIPTION sq compresses a sorted list of words (a dictionary). For example: sort /usr/share/dict/words | sq | compress > words.sq.Z will compress dict by about a factor of 4. unsq uncompress the output of sq. For example: compress -d < words.sq.Z | unsq | sort -f -o words will uncompress a dictionary compressed with sq. The squeezing is achieved by eliminating common prefixes, and replacing them with a single character which encodes the number of characters shared with the preceding word. The prefix size is encoded as a single printable character: 0-9 represent 0-9, A-Z represent 10-35, and a-z represent 36-61. AUTHOR Mike Wexler SEE ALSO compress(1), sort(1). LOCAL SQ(1)