Project Overview

Inflate is a Python-based compression and archival utility that supports two compression methods:

• ACS (Abstract Compression System): Local compression using 7z format with .acs extension.
• CBAC (Cloud-Based Abstract Compression): Cloud-enabled compression using Dawnbond(Supabase abstraction layer made by me) for remote storage

The system creates file maps and content files, compresses them using py7zr (7-Zip), and optionally uploads to cloud storage with retrieval codes.

Inner works

How ACS Works

ACS(or Abstract Compression System) generates 2 blueprints of the selected folder: filemap.txt(map of all files) and filecntt.txt(file contents). Then the 2 files get packed into an .acs arhive. ACS is 3% faster than ZIP and 53% smaller than ZIP(tested on the latest CURL build)

How CBAC Works

CBAC(or Cloud Based Abstract Compression) uses ACS to create an arhive,and then it stores it using Dawnbond,an supabase abstraction.You can purge,upload and take down from CBAC.

Core Components

• inflate.py: Main CLI interface and orchestration layer
• acsmain.py: ACS compression/decompression engine with 7z handling
• dawnbond.py: Supabase cloud storage interface (DawnbondCloud class)

Data Flow

1. Compression: Files → filemap.txt + filecntt.txt → 7z archive → .acs file → (optional) cloud upload
2. Decompression: .acs/.cbac file → extract 7z → parse filemap/filecntt → reconstruct directory structure

External Dependencies

• py7zr: Python 7-Zip library for compression
• supabase-py: Cloud database/storage client
• python-dotenv: Environment variable management
• System requirement: 7z command-line tool must be installed

Setup(Mandatory)

# Activate virtual environment (REQUIRED)

#macOS/Linux
source .venv/bin/activate
# Windows
cd .venv/bin/activate
./activate.ps1

# Install system dependency
sudo apt install p7zip-full  # Ubuntu/Debian
# or
brew install p7zip  # macOS
# Windows
pip install p7zip

# Environment configuration
# Copy .env.template to .env and configure:
# SUPABASE_URL=your_supabase_url
# SUPABASE_KEY=your_supabase_key

Then,in your Supabase project,make a table in public named cbac. Then add 5 columns to it:

• id of type int8
• created_at of type timestampx
• filename of type text
• file of type bytea
• code of type numeric

Common Development Commands

Running the Application

# Must run from virtual environment
source .venv/bin/activate

# ACS local compression
python inflate.py --method acs --compress /path/to/folder

# ACS local decompression  
python inflate.py --method acs --decompress file.acs [output_folder]

# CBAC cloud compression
python inflate.py --method cbac --compress /path/to/folder

# CBAC cloud decompression
python inflate.py --method cbac --decompress <retrieval_code> [output_folder]

# CBAC cloud cleanup
python inflate.py --method cbac --purge <retrieval_code>

Development Testing

# Test core dependencies are available
python -c "import py7zr, supabase, dotenv; print('All dependencies OK')"

# Test system 7z availability
7z --help

# Quick functionality test (create test folder first)
mkdir test_data && echo "test content" > test_data/test.txt
python inflate.py --method acs --compress test_data
python inflate.py --method acs --decompress compressed_*.acs test_output

Debugging

# Check environment variables
python -c "from dotenv import load_dotenv; import os; load_dotenv(); print('SUPABASE_URL:', bool(os.getenv('SUPABASE_URL')))"

# Test Supabase connection
python -c "from dawnbond import DawnbondCloud; cloud = DawnbondCloud(); print('Cloud connection OK')"

Known Issues & Architecture Notes

Cloud Storage Design

• Uses Supabase with base64 encoding for binary file storage
• Generates 5-digit random retrieval codes with collision checking
• Files stored in cbac table with fields: code, filename, file

File Processing

• Text files are read with errors="ignore" encoding handling
• Directory structure is flattened into filemap.txt with relative paths
• File contents concatenated into filecntt.txt with delimiter markers

Virtual Environment Requirement

The application expects to run in a virtual environment and will show initialization errors if dependencies aren't properly installed in the venv.

Development Guidelines

Error Handling Patterns

The codebase uses a logging system with log(), warn(), and err() functions that prefix messages with [INF], [WRN], and [ERR] respectively.

Cloud Operations

All cloud operations require valid Supabase credentials in .env. The DawnbondCloud class handles connection initialization and will raise exceptions on configuration problems.

Archive Format

ACS files are standard 7z archives with .acs extension containing two files:

• filemap.txt: Directory structure and file paths
• filecntt.txt: Concatenated file contents with path delimiters