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LibZ85

Standalone Z85 (ZeroMQ base85) encoder/decoder. Pack binary data into Lua-string-literal-safe ASCII. LibStub-registered as "LibZ85-1.0".

A standalone Z85 (ZeroMQ base-85) encoder/decoder for World of Warcraft addons.

Z85 packs 4 binary bytes into 5 ASCII characters from a fixed 85-char alphabet. Every alphabet character is safe inside a Lua "..." string literal with no backslash escape, which makes Z85 ideal for embedding binary data (packed records, lookup tables, compressed payloads) directly inside Lua source you ship as part of an addon.

LibStub-registered as LibZ85-1.0. MIT licensed.

Why Z85 over base64? Base64 uses + / = characters that produce different bytes when round-tripped through some text-handling code, and = padding is a hassle to detect in fixed-width record streams. Z85's alphabet is hand-picked to be string-safe in C, Lua, JSON, and most other source-text contexts. No characters need escaping. Output length is always a multiple of 5; input is padded to a multiple of 4. That makes it a clean fit for shipping pre-computed binary blobs as part of an addon's Lua source.

Reference: RFC 32 — Z85 (ZeroMQ Base-85 encoding).

The LibZ85 Team

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