Automatic file compression?

[Robert Barrell]

     Is there any way, or any library of routines, which would automatically
compress data when it is stored into a file, and uncompress it when it is
retrieved?  I'd like to be able to read and write compressed files directly
without having to run them through uncompress of zcat all the time, and still
have file positioning work relative to the uncompressed data. 
     Is such a thing possible?  It may be necessary to write a separate library
to handle it, such as Zopen(), Zclose(), Zprintf(), Zscanf(), Zread(), Zwrite(),
Zseek(), etc.  This may be a difficult or impossible task if one only uses the
existing library calls, and pipes to compress, but would someone with a thorough
knowledge of compression algorithms be able to do it?

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