Summary

The Codec package contains utilities that are useful in unusual places. For example, you might use the phonetic routines to help provide corrected spellings for free text searches. You also might use the encoding of binary data to a string to help send data over the network. By adding these to your toolbox, you can provide richer services while focusing on unique aspects of your application.

Project Ideas

Write an application that parses arbitrarily large bodies of text and generates a database of phonetic data. What are the best ways to store this? How large is the generated database?

Write an application that calculates the MD5 and SHA results for large bodies of text and binary data. What are the performance tradeoffs? How large does a data set have to be before this becomes an issue?

Write a command-line application to convert files to Base64 and back again. How does this compare to converting files to .zip and back? When would you use Base64, and when would you use .zip?