fixing broken .Z files?

Not me, but it may be doable manually, depending. What kind of error do you have? Wrong data, dropout, insertion, you don't know, what? In theory it may be possible. compress (.Z) uses Lempel-Ziv-Welch. An insertion or dropout is relatively hard to fix, in large part because it means you have trouble telling where compressed values' boundaries are. Wrong data is comparatively easy; it will give you a corrupt decoding table (or an outright error if the coded value is out of range and the decoder bothers to check), but if the decompressed data is highly redundant it's often fixable. To fix an insertion, I'd basically have to just try deleting various numbers of bits or bytes (depending on the medium, what the probable unit of insertion is may vary) until you get sane decoded output. To fix a dropout, I'd try inserting varying numbers of 0 bits (or bytes) until I started getting garbled (instead of totally garbage) decoded output, then treat it as corrupted data. To fix corrupted data, I'd use a decoder that lets you look at the decompression table. (This description assumes you know LZW. If you don't, and you can't find a good description easily, write me off-list; it's a relatively simple algorithm.) When you get the first garbled output, look at what decompression table entry the bogus bits came from. Then look back to where that entry was created and see what you'd have to change to make it come out right. Repeat until you get a clean decompression. (If you get a code-out-of-range error, you know which compressed code is broken; try the different possible valid codes until you get something that makes sense locally, and of the few that do, look to see which produce clean data following.) There is another possibility: ignore the garbling and keep decompressing. If you're lucky, the encoder will emit a clear code soon and you'll start over with a clean table, at which point you will suddenly start getting non-garbled decompression. (If you're unlucky, the encoder will hold off on the clear code.) Of course, all this depends on the decompressed data being relatively nonrandom (so you can tell when you ahve garbled data). tar headers certainly qualify; depending on what the files contained in the archive are, they may or may not qualify. Running text in a natural language, and programs in most computer languages, qualify as well. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B