There are many different compression formats based on LZW and/or LZX; it really depends on what language you are used to working in as to what links you are going to find helpful. If you are a Java programmer, you may find the open source implementation of ZLib to be useful. If you are a Windows C++ programmer (proficient in C++ and COM), you will find the sourcecode for 7Zip to be useful. If you are a .NET developer, you will find the sourcecode for SharpZipLib to be useful.

Most compression formats (ZIP, RAR, CAB, ACE, 7Z, etc.) use a combination of Huffman trees and LZW/LZX-based dictionaries.

Either way, you will find that Google (or the search engine for your forum of choice) is always your best friend . There are too many resources available to list them all here.