CHMLIB 0.35===========-------SUMMARY-------chmlib is a small library designed for accessing MS ITSS files.  The ITSS fileformat is used for Microsoft Html Help files (.chm), which have been thepredominant medium for software documentation from Microsoft during the pastseveral years, having superceded the previously used .hlp file format.Note that this is NOT the same as the OLE structured storage file format usedby MS Excel, Word, and so on.  Instead, it is a different file format whichfulfills a similar purpose.  Both file formats may be accessed via instancesof the IStorage COM interface, which is essentially an "acts like afilesystem" interface.-------FILE FORMAT SUPPORT-------Lookup of files in the archive is supported, and should be relatively quick.Reading of files in the archive is also supported.Writing is not supported, but may be added in the future.In terms of support for the ITSS file format, there are a few places in whichthe support provided by this library is not fully general:1. ITSS files whose names contain UTF-8 characters which are not part of the   ASCII subset will not currently be dealt with gracefully.  Currently, the   filenames are not converted from UTF-8, but are instead returned as-is.  I'm   very interested in hearing any suggestions as to the "right" way to handle   this.2. Only version 3 ITSS files are supported at present, though some work has   gone towards divining the differences between different versions of the   file format.  It is possible that version 2 ITSS files might work properly   with this library, but unconfirmed.3. Archives larger than 4 GB should be supported just fine, but if they   contain files larger than 4GB, this library may break.  Fortunately, this   seems somewhat unlikely.If you run into .chm files (or files you suspect are ITSS files) that thislibrary doesn't work with, please contact me so I can fix the library.-------PORTABILITY-------This software was originally developed on a Intel x86 Debian Linux machine,using gcc 3.0.  It has since been compiled on various flavors of RedHat aswell, and using versions of gcc from 2.95 through 3.2.  Basic Win32 supportshould be in this release.  (While a port to Win32 may _seem_ like a funnyidea, given that Windows ships with libraries for CHM access, it turns out thatWin CE does not; I've gotten a request for a port to Windows CE.)Chmlib apparently works on OS X, with some tweaks.  In particular, disablingpread and io64 apparently works.Finally, Andrew Hodgetts has ported to Solaris and IRIX:On Monday, 7 Oct 2002, Andrew Hodgetts wrote:> Solaris(Sun):> > I used both SunProC and GCC on the solaris machines to compile. They> both worked ok.> However, both required -lsocket on the link line of the Makefile or you> recieve linking errors.> > I have this working on CPUs ranging from Sun4m (Sparc5) through to> UltraSparcIII (SunFireV880).> > Irix (SGI):> > I only testing with the MIPS compiler (not GCC). All worked ok - lots of> warning messages, but it always does that.He further noted that:> ... for NON GCC compilers, a little tweaking may be required, but nothing too> complex.  ie SunProC doesn't understand -fPIC for library building.  Irix> required -n32 (new 32bit libraries) etc.  These are things that someone who> uses the OS and compiler should be used to dealing with.-------CREDITS-------* Stuart Caie: the LZX decompression code, and for granting permission to  re-license under the LGPL.* Stan Tobias: bugfixes and the added 'index page' feature of chm_http.* Andrew Hodgetts: porting to Solaris and IRIX, as well as fixing some  little-endian biases in the code.*  Rich Erwin: Windows CE support.*  Pabs: bug fixes and suggestions.*  Antony Dovgal: setting up autoconf/automake based build process.*  Ragnar Hojland Espinosa: patches to make chm_http more useful.*  Razvan Cojocaru: forwarding along information regarding building on OS X.* Julien Lemoine: creating and maintaining the Debian package of chmlib.*  Anyone else I've forgotten. (?)