are useful for large data streams on unreliable channels, where some data loss is unimportant, such as in some multimedia applications. However, creating many flush points can affect the speed as well as the amount (ratio) of compression. Data length There is no limit to the length of data that can be compressed or decompressed. Repeated calls to the library allow an unlimited number of blocks of data to be handled. Some ancillary code (counters) may suffer from overflow for long data streams, but this does not affect the actual compression or decompression. When compressing a long (or infinite) data stream, it is advisable to write regular full-flush points. Applications Today, zlib is something of a de facto standard, to the point that zlib and DEFLATE are often used interchangeably in standards documents, with thousands of applications relying on it for compression, either directly or indirectly. These include: The Linux kernel, where zlib is used to implement compressed network protocols, compressed file systems, and to decompress the kernel image at boot time. GNU Binutils and GNU Debugger (GDB) libpng, the reference implementation for the PNG image format, which specifies DEFLATE as the stream compression for its bitmap data. libwww, an API for Web applications like Web browsers. The Apache HTTP Server, which uses zlib to implement HTTP/1.1. Similarly, the cURL library uses zlib to decompress HTTP responses. The OpenSSH client and server, which rely on zlib to perform the optional compression offered by the Secure Shell protocol. The OpenSSL and GnuTLS security libraries, which can optionally use zlib to compress TLS connections. The FFmpeg multimedia library, which uses zlib to read and write the DEFLATE-compressed parts of stream formats, such as Matroska. The rsync remote file synchronizer, which uses zlib to implement optional protocol compression. The dpkg and RPM package managers, which use zlib to unpack files from compressed software packages. The Apache Subversion and CVS version control systems, which use zlib to compress traffic to and from remote repositories. The Apache ORC column-oriented data storage format use ZLib as its default compression method. The Git version control system uses zlib to store the contents of its data objects (blobs, trees, commits and tags). The PostgreSQL RDBMS uses zlib with custom dump format (pg_dump -Fc) for database backups. The class System.IO.Compression.DeflateStream of the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and higher. The "deflate" utility in TORNADO as part of VxWorks Operating System