FSCTL_SET_COMPRESSION  176E3LO 

The FSCTL_SET_COMPRESSION DeviceIoControl64IE_Y8 operation sets the compression state of a file or directory on a volume whose file system supports per-file and per-directory compression. You can use this operation to compress or uncompress a file or directory on such a volume.

dwIoControlCode = FSCTL_SET_COMPRESSION;   // operation code

lpInBuffer ;        // pointer to input buffer

nInBufferSize ;     // size of input buffer

lpOutBuffer = NULL; // pointer to output buffer; not used; must be NULL

nOutBufferSize = 0; // size of output buffer; not used; must be zero

lpBytesReturned ;   // pointer to DWORD used by DeviceIoControl function

Parameters

lpInBuffer

Points to a buffer that contains a USHORT that specifies a new compression state for the file or directory.

The following values are defined:

nInBufferSize

Specifies the size, in bytes, of the buffer pointed to by lpInBuffer. The buffer must be large enough to contain one USHORT value.

lpOutBuffer

Points to an output buffer. Not used with this operation. Set to NULL.

nOutBufferSize

Specifies the size, in bytes, of the buffer pointed to by lpOutBuffer. Not used with this operation. Set to zero.

lpBytesReturned

Pointer to a DWORD. This value cannot be NULL. Although the FSCTL_SET_COMPRESSION operation produces no output data and lpOutBuffer should be NULL, the DeviceIoControl64IE_Y8 function uses the variable pointed to by lpBytesReturned. After the operation, the value of this variable is without meaning.

Return Values

If the operation succeeds, DeviceIoControl64IE_Y8 returns TRUE.

If the operation fails, DeviceIoControl returns FALSE. To get extended error information, call GetLastError11C2VS7.

Remarks

On this release, LZNT1 is the only compression algorithm implemented. As a result, LZNT1 will be used as the DEFAULT compression method. Future releases may have additional compression methods which may be used as the DEFAULT.

If the file system of the volume containing the specified file or directory does not support per-file or per-directory compression, the FSCTL_SET_COMPRESSION operation fails.

Windows NT release 3.51 supports file compression on volumes formatted with NTFS.

The compression state change of the file or directory occurs synchronously with the call to DeviceIoControl.

You can obtain the compression state of a file or directory by using the FSCTL_GET_COMPRESSION DeviceIoControl operation.

You can obtain the compression attribute of a file or directory by calling the GetFileAttributes function. The compression attribute indicates whether a file or directory is compressed. The compression state indicates whether a file or directory is compressed and, if it is, the format of the compressed data.

See Also