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From: D <nospam@example.net>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Script to conditionally find and compress files recursively
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2024 10:13:43 +0200
Organization: i2pn2 (i2pn.org)
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On Wed, 12 Jun 2024, Richard Kettlewell wrote:

> Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> writes:
>> On 6/11/24 01:53, J Newman wrote:
>>> Any suggestions on how to proceed?
>>
>> As others have said, it's very difficult to tell within the first five
>> seconds what the ultimate compression ratio will be.
>
> Not just difficult but impossible in general: the input file could
> change character in its second half, switching the overall result from
> that that is (for example) a gzip win to an xz win.
>
>

This is true! The only thing I can imagine are parsing the file type, and 
from that file type, drawing conclusions about the compressability of the 
data, or doing a flawed statistical analysis, but as said, the end could 
be vastly different from the start.