--- /dev/null
+# OCaml batteries, now with GZip-ed channels
+
+This week-end I've spent some time to kick-start my hacking onto
+[OCaml Batteries Included](http://batteries.forge.ocamlcore.org/)
+(yes, it deserve a proper website).
+
+[[Last time I wrote about it|10/ocaml_batteries_included_debian_packages]]
+was with my package maintainer hat on. In the meantime I've got
+trapped`^W`involved with upstream development as well, after having
+been so fool to propose integration with [Batteries' I/O
+channels](http://batteries.forge.ocamlcore.org/doc.preview/batteries-alpha1/batteries/html/api/System.IO.html)
+of compression/decompression libraries.
+
+Well, here are the first tiny teeny results:
+
+ # open Batteries.System;;
+ # let i = File.open_in "/tmp/fstab.gz";;
+ val i : InnerIO.input = <abstr>
+ # let i2 = GZip.uncompress i;;
+ val i2 : InnerIO.input = <abstr>
+ # IO.read_line i2;;
+ - : string = "# /etc/fstab: static file system information."
+ # IO.read_line i2;;
+ - : string = "#"
+ # (* same goes for output of course *)
+
+i.e., no matter how you created an I/O channel (and with Batteries you
+can create it out of *a lot* of entities), you can apply a `gzip`
+compress/decompress filter.
+
+The underlying library is
+[Camlzip](http://caml.inria.fr/cgi-bin/hump.en.cgi?contrib=84), which
+also sets a precedent on how to integrate external libraries into
+Batteries properly.
+
+The code is not released yet (hey, Batteries is still alpha!), but is
+available from the [Git
+repo](http://git.ocamlcore.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=batteries/batteries.git;a=summary),
+([zack/compress
+branch](http://git.ocamlcore.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=batteries/batteries.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/zack/compress)).
+
+Next milestone: `bzip2` ... of course with the same interface, so that
+changing (de)compressor will be as easy as `s/GZip/BZip2/g` in the
+code above. `tar` and `zip` will come next (but with different
+interfaces, as old *nix jokes tell us, compressing and archiving are
+different tasks).
+
+[[tag lang/english planet/debian ocaml batteries]]