CoreZip is a C++ command-line file compression tool that implements a lossless compression pipeline using Huffman encoding.
It supports both single-file compression and folder-based archive compression, focusing on low-level compression mechanics, binary I/O, and bit-level data handling.

• Version: v0.9
• Status: Core compression engine with folder/archive support
• Algorithm: Huffman Encoding
• Scope: Single-file and folder compression (archived)

CoreZip is designed as a modular compression engine built incrementally to explore how real-world compression tools work internally.

This version represents the foundational stage of the project, establishing a reliable Huffman-based pipeline along with basic archive handling for folders. The focus is on correctness and clarity rather than maximum compression efficiency.

• Lossless file compression using Huffman encoding
• Folder compression via custom archive creation
• Binary file input/output handling
• Bit-level stream management for efficient encoding
• Command-line interface for compression and decompression
• Integrity-preserving decompression for files and archives

1. Read input file in binary mode
2. Analyze byte frequency distribution
3. Build Huffman tree
4. Encode data using variable-length codes
5. Write compressed output with metadata

1. Traverse folder structure recursively
2. Pack files into a custom archive format
3. Compress archived data using Huffman encoding
4. Restore original folder structure during decompression

CoreZip/
│
├── src/
│ ├── main.cpp
│ ├── huffman.h
│ ├── huffman.cpp
│ ├── bitstream.h
│ └── bitstream.cpp
│
├── data/
│ └── sample.txt
│
├── build/
│ └── (ignored)
│
└── README.md

This project is built and tested on Windows using GCC (MinGW).

g++ src\main.cpp src\huffman.cpp src\bitstream.cpp -o build\compress.exe

build\compress.exe compress file <input_file> <output_file>

build\compress.exe compress file data\sample.txt build\sample.huff

build\compress.exe decompress <archive_file> <output_file>

build\compress.exe decompress build\sample.huff build\out

build\compress.exe compress folder <input_folder> <output_archive>

build\compress.exe compress folder data\testFolder build\folder.huff

build\compress.exe decompress <archive_file> <output_folder>

build\compress.exe decompress build\folder.huff build\outputFolder

This project is released under the MIT License.