This International Standard specifies a lossless compression algorithm to reduce the number of bits required to represent information coded by means of 8-bit bytes. This algorithm is known as DCLZ (Data Compression according to Lempel and Ziv).

This International Standard specifies neither the strategy for resetting the dictionary nor that for freezing it, as these are implementation-dependent.

This algorithm is particularly useful when information has to be recorded on an inter-changeable medium. Its use is not limited to this application.