System for automatically compressing and decompressing data for sender

Abstract

A number of data compression and decompression server processes and a socket interface to which these server processes can be attached are provided to each computer system of a network. Additionally, an OPEN, a WRITE, and a READ routine are provided to the operating system of each computer system of the network. The OPEN routine is used by a client sender process to establish connection to a client receiver process computer system. In the course of establishing the connection, the OPEN routine automatically negotiate a compression/decompression method between the sender and the receiver computer system. The WRITE routine is used by the client sender process to send data to the client process. In the course of sending the data, the WRITE routine automatically invokes the appropriate compression method to compress the data based on the result of the negotiation performed by the OPEN routine. The READ routine is used by the client receiver process to receive data from the sender process. Similarly, in the course of receiving the data, the READ routine automatically invokes the appropriate decompression method to decompress the data based also on the result of the negotiation performed by the OPEN routine. As a result, the automatic data compression and decompression are completely transparent to the client sender and receiver processes.