CUSTOM FILE COMPRESSOR

Overview

Custom File Compressor is a lightweight Python application that implements the Run-Length Encoding (RLE) algorithm from scratch. It allows users to compress and decompress text files through an interactive command-line interface while providing compression statistics and file validation.

Features

• Custom Run-Length Encoding (RLE) implementation
• Compress text files
• Decompress RLE files
• Automatic output file generation
• Compression ratio calculation
• Space saved calculation
• Original and compressed file size comparison
• Execution time measurement
• File validation
• Error handling for invalid or corrupted files
• Interactive command-line interface
• Modular Python code structure

Project Structure

Custom File Compressor/ │── main.py │── compressor.py │── examples │── .gitignore

Technologies Used

• Python 3
• Run-Length Encoding (RLE)
• File Handling
• os module
• time module

Requirements

• Python 3x
• No external libraries are required.

How to Run

1. Download or clone the repository.
2. Open the project folder in VS Code or any Python IDE.
3. Open the terminal.
4. Run the following command: python main.py

Menu

CUSTOM FILE COMPRESSOR

1. Compress File
2. Decompress File
3. About
4. Exit

Sample Input

AAAAAAAAAABBBBBCCCCDDDDDEEEEEFFFFGGGG `

Sample Compressed Output

A10B5C4D5E5F4G4

Sample Program Output

========== COMPRESSION SUCCESSFUL ==========

Input File : sample.txt Output File : sample.txt.rle

Original Size : 30 bytes Compressed Size : 8 bytes

Space Saved : 22 bytes

Compression Ratio : 26.67%

Reduction : 73.33%

Status : Excellent Compression

Execution Time : 0.000214 seconds

Algorithm

The project uses the Run-Length Encoding (RLE) compression algorithm. Instead of storing repeated characters individually, RLE stores each character followed by the number of consecutive occurrences.

Example:

Original Data: AAAAABBBCC Compressed Data: A5B3C2

During decompression, the original text is reconstructed using the stored counts.

Time Complexity

Operation	Complexity
Compression	O(n)
Decompression	O(n)

Space Complexity

Operation	Complexity
Compression	O(n)
Decompression	O(n)

Limitations

• Supports text files only.
• Run-Length Encoding performs best on data containing repeated characters.
• Files with little repetition may not compress efficiently.

Future Enhancements

• Graphical User Interface (Tkinter)
• Binary file support
• Folder compression
• Password protection
• Multiple compression algorithms
• Drag-and-drop support
• Compression history log

Author

YASHU A.B.