"tar -c|gzip" faster than "tar -cz"?!?

[Dan Nelson]

In the last episode (Oct 13), Tim Kientzle said:
> Oliver Fromme wrote:
> >Meanwhile I had a quick look at the code:  gzip uses some optimized
> >assembler code ...  Maybe that's the reason why gzip is noticeably
> >faster.
> 
> Anyone care to try this test on PPC, ARM, or Sparc?

The only assembly in our match.S is for x86 and 68k.  Newer gzips also
include an ia64 version.
 
> There's a move afoot to replace the GPL gzip with a more
> openly-licensed gzip implemented on top of libz.  I wonder if the
> libz implementors have similar assembly optimizations that we should
> be using?

Odd.  I actually disabled the assembly file in my tree because gcc
generated 20%-faster code from deflate.c than the provided assembly
code in match.S , at least on a pIII.

-- 
	Dan Nelson
	dnelson at allantgroup.com