(Perl) Compress a File to Gzip with Custom Metadata

See more Gzip Examples

This example demonstrates how to use the CompressFile method to create a Gzip (.gz) file while customizing the metadata embedded in the Gzip header.

Before compression, several properties are set:

• Comment: Adds a descriptive comment to the Gzip file.
• Filename: Specifies the filename to embed in the Gzip data, which may be used by extraction tools as the default output name.
• CompressionLevel: Controls the tradeoff between compression ratio and speed (set to maximum in this example).
• LastModStr: Sets the last-modified timestamp using an RFC 822 formatted date string.

After setting these properties, the input file is compressed and written to a .gz file. This approach allows you to embed meaningful metadata along with the compressed data.

Chilkat Perl Downloads Perl Module for Windows, MacOS, Linux, Alpine Linux

use chilkat();

$success = 0;

# This example demonstrates how to compress a file to Gzip format
# while setting custom metadata such as comment, filename,
# compression level, and last-modified date.

$gzip = chilkat::CkGzip->new();

# Set custom Gzip properties:
$gzip->put_Comment("Example Gzip file created with Chilkat");
$gzip->put_Filename("custom_name.txt");
$gzip->put_CompressionLevel(9);
$gzip->put_LastModStr("Wed, 1 Apr 2025 12:45:26 -0500");

# The file to be compressed:
$inputFile = "example.txt";
$outputFile = "example.txt.gz";

# Compress the file:
$success = $gzip->CompressFile($inputFile,$outputFile);
if ($success == 0) {
    print $gzip->lastErrorText() . "\r\n";
    exit;
}

print "Compression successful." . "\r\n";
print "Gzip file created: " . $outputFile . "\r\n";