Sources:
[1] gzip man file
[2] http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/difference-between-zip-and-gzip/

1: a program that allocates a 1MB buffer, and then writes the contents of this (random-data) buffer to a file, until the file is the same size as the total size of the ‘files to compress’.

2: a program that allocates a 1MB buffer, and then reads the contents of all the ‘files to compress’.

The second program would probably not be spending exactly the same time as if for instance doing a cp -R * /dev/null; I believe that it might be quicker.

It’s quite simple…
#include
int main(int argc, const char *argv[])
{
uint8_t *buffer;
FILE *fp;
size_t l;
size_t s;

s = 1024 * 1024;
buffer = malloc(s);
if(buffer)
{
fp = fopen(“/tmp/testfile”, “w”)
if(fp)
{
l = 1234567890; /* hardcoded filesize (for this example) */
while(l)
{
l = (l > s) ? (l – s) : s;
w = fwrite(buffer, sizeof(*buffer), s, fp);
if(w != s)
{
return(-1);
}
}
fclose(fp);
return(0);
}
}
return(-1);
}

…Probably made a few boogs, but you get the idea.

I look forward to seing nanozip results too. :)