implode

Etymology

Back-formation from implosion.

verb

  1. (intransitive) To collapse or burst inward violently.
    The submarine imploded as it sank below its crush depth.
  2. (transitive) To cause to collapse or burst inward violently.
  3. (computing, programming, PHP) The opposite of explode, array to string conversion.
  4. (transitive, computing) To compress (data) with a particular algorithm.
    I'm looking for some code that will implode data using the PKZIP method.. and explode it. PKWare sells an object that you can link with that does the job, and we have licensed this, but we are now writing 32 bit code for MS-DOS and the PKWare stuff won't work […] 1992, Steve Tibbett, “PKZIP Implode compression/decompression.”, in comp.compression (Usenet)

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