Reading online zip files - zipfile and zlib, wbits

[Brendan]

On Dec 12, 10:46 am, Brendan <brendandetra... at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Dec 12, 10:25 am, Brendan <brendandetra... at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > I am fooling around with accessing contents of zip files online. I
> > download the tail end of the zip and use zipfile to get the zip
> > central directory structure. I download the section of the zip file I
> > need, directly read the zip file headers and use that information with
> > zlib to uncompress the data. The files I am examining will always be
> > compressed using deflate, with a wbits value of -15(minus for
> > headerless data because I am unsure whether the zip file header is
> > what zlib expects).
>
> > I can not find anywhere in the PK Zip Application notes (http://www.pkware.com/documents/casestudies/APPNOTE.TXT) how to
> > determine the value I should uze for wbits with zlib.decompress. I
> > have determined it is -15 from experimentation. Does anyone know the
> > answer to this?
>
> Okay, I found part of the answer here in the zip app notes
> [quote]
> general purpose bit flag: (2 bytes)
>
>           Bit 0: If set, indicates that the file is encrypted.
>
>           (For Method 6 - Imploding)
>           Bit 1: If the compression method used was type 6,
>                  Imploding, then this bit, if set, indicates
>                  an 8K sliding dictionary was used.  If clear,
>                  then a 4K sliding dictionary was used.
>           Bit 2: If the compression method used was type 6,
>                  Imploding, then this bit, if set, indicates
>                  3 Shannon-Fano trees were used to encode the
>                  sliding dictionary output.  If clear, then 2
>                  Shannon-Fano trees were used.
>
>           (For Methods 8 and 9 - Deflating)
>           Bit 2  Bit 1
>             0      0    Normal (-en) compression option was used.
>             0      1    Maximum (-exx/-ex) compression option was
> used.
>             1      0    Fast (-ef) compression option was used.
>             1      1    Super Fast (-es) compression option was used.
> [/quote]
>
> Now I just don't understand Why Normal deflate corresponds to 15
> wbits, and why I have to use headerless for the data, i.e. wbits = -15.

Seems the bit flags are not properly set, bit 2 should be 0 and bit 1
should be 1, to correspond to maximum compression i.e. wbit = 15.
Still don't know why wbits has to be negative.