And it is reducing perl code from 13,997 bytes to 4,750 bytes! That's less than half of the original. And we're not even using gzip here.
Even better, only 85% of the crippled code, 29% of the original code, and still lossless and maintainable:
/tmp>gzip -9 < 11109869.pl > 11109869.pl.gz
/tmp>lzma -9 < 11109869.pl > 11109869.pl.lzma
/tmp>bzip2 -9 < 11109869.pl > 11109869.pl.bz2
/tmp>dir 11109869.pl*
-rw-r--r-- 1 alex users 13999 Dec 9 23:01 11109869.pl
-rw-r--r-- 1 alex users 4110 Dec 9 23:02 11109869.pl.bz2
-rw-r--r-- 1 alex users 4296 Dec 9 23:02 11109869.pl.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 alex users 4099 Dec 9 23:02 11109869.pl.lzma
/tmp>
Alexander
--
Today I will gladly share my knowledge and experience, for there are no sweeter words than "I told you so". ;-)