compressing a file and read it while compressed

[Violet_82]

Hi there, I was wondering if compressing a file and work with it while it is still compressed is possible/will be possible in the future?
Say you have a huge file, I am talking about terabytes of files, obviously just in theory, would it be possilble to work with it without decompressing it?
thanks

[JorgeM]

When you compress a file in Windows and you access it, Windows automatically uncompresses it for you during the access. This adds additional CPU power (not a big deal) and of course, you have to have enough space on disk during the decompression.

[Violet_82]

thanks JorgeM, so I take it is not possible to access a compressed file and working on it while it is compressed? What is it that prevent this from happening, i mean, why a file needs to be decompressed (whether manually or automatically) before being accessed?
thanks

[JorgeM]

This is my understanding of how Windows handles compressed files. I would assume even if you had an app that was able to access the same compressed file, it would need to be uncompressed to view the contents. I would tend to think this is so because of the way that compression works. Generally, compression looks at patterns in the file and removes those patterns and replaces these patterns with items that take up less space.

[Violet_82]

thanks, I think I might need to look into how compression works then, just out of interest. Do you suggest any good link?

[JorgeM]

I think you will find various techniques for compression. Start with a generic search to get basic information about the concept and go from there.