C<Z_NO_FLUSH>, C<Z_SYNC_FLUSH>, C<Z_FULL_FLUSH> and C<Z_BLOCK>. It is
strongly recommended that you only set the C<flush_type> parameter if
you fully understand the implications of what it does - overuse of C<flush>
can seriously degrade the level of compression achieved. See the C<zlib>
documentation for details.

Returns 0 on success.

=item B<$offset = $gz-E<gt>gztell() ;>

Returns the uncompressed file offset.

=item B<$status = $gz-E<gt>gzseek($offset, $whence) ;>

Provides a sub-set of the C<seek> functionality, with the restriction
that it is only legal to seek forward in the compressed file.
It is a fatal error to attempt to seek backward.

When opened for writing, empty parts of the file will have NULL (0x00)
bytes written to them.

The C<$whence> parameter should be one of SEEK_SET, SEEK_CUR or SEEK_END.

Returns 1 on success, 0 on failure.

=item B<$gz-E<gt>gzclose>

Closes the compressed file. Any pending data is flushed to the file
before it is closed.

Returns 0 on success.

=item B<$gz-E<gt>gzsetparams($level, $strategy>

Change settings for the deflate stream C<$gz>.

The list of the valid options is shown below. Options not specified
will remain unchanged.

Note: This method is only available if you are running zlib 1.0.6 or better.

=over 5

=item B<$level>

Defines the compression level. Valid values are 0 through 9,
C<Z_NO_COMPRESSION>, C<Z_BEST_SPEED>, C<Z_BEST_COMPRESSION>, and
C<Z_DEFAULT_COMPRESSION>.

=item B<$strategy>

Defines the strategy used to tune the compression. The valid values are
C<Z_DEFAULT_STRATEGY>, C<Z_FILTERED> and C<Z_HUFFMAN_ONLY>. 

=back

=item B<$gz-E<gt>gzerror>

Returns the I<zlib> error message or number for the last operation
associated with C<$gz>. The return value will be the I<zlib> error
number when used in a numeric context and the I<zlib> error message
when used in a string context. The I<zlib> error number constants,
shown below, are available for use.

    Z_OK
    Z_STREAM_END
    Z_ERRNO
    Z_STREAM_ERROR
    Z_DATA_ERROR
    Z_MEM_ERROR
    Z_BUF_ERROR

=item B<$gzerrno>

The C<$gzerrno> scalar holds the error code associated with the most
recent I<gzip> routine. Note that unlike C<gzerror()>, the error is
I<not> associated with a particular file.

As with C<gzerror()> it returns an error number in numeric context and
an error message in string context. Unlike C<gzerror()> though, the
error message will correspond to the I<zlib> message when the error is
associated with I<zlib> itself, or the UNIX error message when it is
not (i.e. I<zlib> returned C<Z_ERRORNO>).

As there is an overlap between the error numbers used by I<zlib> and
UNIX, C<$gzerrno> should only be used to check for the presence of
I<an> error in numeric context. Use C<gzerror()> to check for specific
I<zlib> errors. The I<gzcat> example below shows how the variable can
be used safely.

=back

=head2 Examples

Here is an example script which uses the interface. It implements a
I<gzcat> function.

    use strict ;
    use warnings ;