#! code

Reading and writing to compressed gzip files can be done in much the same way as reading and writing normal files. The main difference is the use of some special functions that compress and uncompress the data. Rather then use fopen() to open a file, you open a compressed file with gzopen(). This is the case for many of the file access functions, although you should be aware that they don't all work exactly the same as each other.

Building your projects into directories is nice, but distributing these projects is difficult if you have to build the compressed files yourself. Phing has the ability to create zip and tar files using simple commands.

The most convenient way of using the tar and zip commands is by using a fileset. But rather than use the fileset that was used to copy the files into the build directory it is best to create a separate fileset that is used to compress the contents of the build directory.