plzip/doc/plzip.texi

\input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
@c %**start of header
@setfilename plzip.info
@documentencoding ISO-8859-15
@settitle Plzip Manual
@finalout
@c %**end of header

@set UPDATED 14 May 2016
@set VERSION 1.5

@dircategory Data Compression
@direntry
* Plzip: (plzip).               Parallel compressor compatible with lzip
@end direntry


@ifnothtml
@titlepage
@title Plzip
@subtitle Parallel compressor compatible with lzip
@subtitle for Plzip version @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}
@author by Antonio Diaz Diaz

@page
@vskip 0pt plus 1filll
@end titlepage

@contents
@end ifnothtml

@node Top
@top

This manual is for Plzip (version @value{VERSION}, @value{UPDATED}).

@menu
* Introduction::           Purpose and features of plzip
* Invoking plzip::         Command line interface
* Program design::         Internal structure of plzip
* File format::            Detailed format of the compressed file
* Memory requirements::    Memory required to compress and decompress
* Minimum file sizes::     Minimum file sizes required for full speed
* Trailing data::          Extra data appended to the file
* Examples::               A small tutorial with examples
* Problems::               Reporting bugs
* Concept index::          Index of concepts
@end menu

@sp 1
Copyright @copyright{} 2009-2016 Antonio Diaz Diaz.

This manual is free documentation: you have unlimited permission
to copy, distribute and modify it.


@node Introduction
@chapter Introduction
@cindex introduction

Plzip is a massively parallel (multi-threaded) lossless data compressor
based on the lzlib compression library, with a user interface similar to
the one of lzip, bzip2 or gzip.

Plzip can compress/decompress large files on multiprocessor machines
much faster than lzip, at the cost of a slightly reduced compression
ratio (0.4 to 2 percent larger compressed files). Note that the number
of usable threads is limited by file size; on files larger than a few GB
plzip can use hundreds of processors, but on files of only a few MB
plzip is no faster than lzip (@pxref{Minimum file sizes}).

Plzip uses the lzip file format; the files produced by plzip are fully
compatible with lzip-1.4 or newer, and can be rescued with lziprecover.

The lzip file format is designed for data sharing and long-term
archiving, taking into account both data integrity and decoder
availability:

@itemize @bullet
@item
The lzip format provides very safe integrity checking and some data
recovery means. The
@uref{http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/manual/lziprecover_manual.html#Data-safety,,lziprecover}
program can repair bit-flip errors (one of the most common forms of data
corruption) in lzip files, and provides data recovery capabilities,
including error-checked merging of damaged copies of a file.
@ifnothtml
@xref{Data safety,,,lziprecover}.
@end ifnothtml

@item
The lzip format is as simple as possible (but not simpler). The lzip
manual provides the code of a simple decompressor along with a detailed
explanation of how it works, so that with the only help of the lzip
manual it would be possible for a digital archaeologist to extract the
data from a lzip file long after quantum computers eventually render
LZMA obsolete.

@item
Additionally the lzip reference implementation is copylefted, which
guarantees that it will remain free forever.
@end itemize

A nice feature of the lzip format is that a corrupt byte is easier to
repair the nearer it is from the beginning of the file. Therefore, with
the help of lziprecover, losing an entire archive just because of a
corrupt byte near the beginning is a thing of the past.

Plzip uses the same well-defined exit status values used by lzip and
bzip2, which makes it safer than compressors returning ambiguous warning
values (like gzip) when it is used as a back end for other programs like
tar or zutils.

Plzip will automatically use the smallest possible dictionary size for
each file without exceeding the given limit. Keep in mind that the
decompression memory requirement is affected at compression time by the
choice of dictionary size limit (@pxref{Memory requirements}).

When compressing, plzip replaces every file given in the command line
with a compressed version of itself, with the name "original_name.lz".
When decompressing, plzip attempts to guess the name for the decompressed
file from that of the compressed file as follows:

@multitable {anyothername} {becomes} {anyothername.out}
@item filename.lz  @tab becomes @tab filename
@item filename.tlz @tab becomes @tab filename.tar
@item anyothername @tab becomes @tab anyothername.out
@end multitable

(De)compressing a file is much like copying or moving it; therefore plzip
preserves the access and modification dates, permissions, and, when
possible, ownership of the file just as "cp -p" does. (If the user ID or
the group ID can't be duplicated, the file permission bits S_ISUID and
S_ISGID are cleared).

Plzip is able to read from some types of non regular files if the
@samp{--stdout} option is specified.

If no file names are specified, plzip compresses (or decompresses) from
standard input to standard output. In this case, plzip will decline to
write compressed output to a terminal, as this would be entirely
incomprehensible and therefore pointless.

Plzip will correctly decompress a file which is the concatenation of two
or more compressed files. The result is the concatenation of the
corresponding uncompressed files. Integrity testing of concatenated
compressed files is also supported.


@node Invoking plzip
@chapter Invoking plzip
@cindex invoking
@cindex options
@cindex usage
@cindex version

The format for running plzip is:

@example
plzip [@var{options}] [@var{files}]
@end example

@noindent
@samp{-} used as a @var{file} argument means standard input. It can be
mixed with other @var{files} and is read just once, the first time it
appears in the command line.

Plzip supports the following options:

@table @code
@item -h
@itemx --help
Print an informative help message describing the options and exit.

@item -V
@itemx --version
Print the version number of plzip on the standard output and exit.

@anchor{--trailing-error}
@item -a
@itemx --trailing-error
Exit with error status 2 if any remaining input is detected after
decompressing the last member. Such remaining input is usually trailing
garbage that can be safely ignored. @xref{concat-example}.

@anchor{--data-size}
@item -B @var{bytes}
@itemx --data-size=@var{bytes}
Set the size of the input data blocks, in bytes. The input file will be
divided in chunks of this size before compression is performed. Valid
values range from 8 KiB to 1 GiB. Default value is two times the
dictionary size, except for option @samp{-0} where it defaults to 1 MiB.
Plzip will reduce the dictionary size if it is larger than the chosen
data size.

@item -c
@itemx --stdout
Compress or decompress to standard output; keep input files unchanged.
If compressing several files, each file is compressed independently.
This option is needed when reading from a named pipe (fifo) or from a
device.

@item -d
@itemx --decompress
Decompress the specified file(s). If a file does not exist or can't be
opened, plzip continues decompressing the rest of the files. If a file
fails to decompress, plzip exits immediately without decompressing the
rest of the files.

@item -f
@itemx --force
Force overwrite of output files.

@item -F
@itemx --recompress
Force re-compression of files whose name already has the @samp{.lz} or
@samp{.tlz} suffix.

@item -k
@itemx --keep
Keep (don't delete) input files during compression or decompression.

@item -m @var{bytes}
@itemx --match-length=@var{bytes}
Set the match length limit in bytes. After a match this long is found,
the search is finished. Valid values range from 5 to 273. Larger values
usually give better compression ratios but longer compression times.

@item -n @var{n}
@itemx --threads=@var{n}
Set the number of worker threads. Valid values range from 1 to "as many
as your system can support". If this option is not used, plzip tries to
detect the number of processors in the system and use it as default
value. @w{@samp{plzip --help}} shows the system's default value.

Note that the number of usable threads is limited to @w{ceil( file_size
/ data_size )} during compression (@pxref{Minimum file sizes}), and to
the number of members in the input during decompression.

@item -o @var{file}
@itemx --output=@var{file}
When reading from standard input and @samp{--stdout} has not been
specified, use @samp{@var{file}} as the virtual name of the uncompressed
file. This produces a file named @samp{@var{file}} when decompressing,
and a file named @samp{@var{file}.lz} when compressing.

@item -q
@itemx --quiet
Quiet operation. Suppress all messages.

@item -s @var{bytes}
@itemx --dictionary-size=@var{bytes}
Set the dictionary size limit in bytes. Plzip will use the smallest
possible dictionary size for each file without exceeding this limit.
Valid values range from 4 KiB to 512 MiB. Values 12 to 29 are
interpreted as powers of two, meaning 2^12 to 2^29 bytes. Note that
dictionary sizes are quantized. If the specified size does not match one
of the valid sizes, it will be rounded upwards by adding up to
@w{(@var{bytes} / 8)} to it.

For maximum compression you should use a dictionary size limit as large
as possible, but keep in mind that the decompression memory requirement
is affected at compression time by the choice of dictionary size limit.

@item -t
@itemx --test
Check integrity of the specified file(s), but don't decompress them.
This really performs a trial decompression and throws away the result.
Use it together with @samp{-v} to see information about the file(s). If
a file fails the test, plzip may be unable to check the rest of the
files.

@item -v
@itemx --verbose
Verbose mode.@*
When compressing, show the compression ratio for each file processed. A
second @samp{-v} shows the progress of compression.@*
When decompressing or testing, further -v's (up to 4) increase the
verbosity level, showing status, compression ratio, dictionary size,
decompressed size, and compressed size.

@item -0 .. -9
Set the compression parameters (dictionary size and match length limit)
as shown in the table below. The default compression level is @samp{-6}.
Note that @samp{-9} can be much slower than @samp{-0}. These options
have no effect when decompressing.

The bidimensional parameter space of LZMA can't be mapped to a linear
scale optimal for all files. If your files are large, very repetitive,
etc, you may need to use the @samp{--dictionary-size} and
@samp{--match-length} options directly to achieve optimal performance.

@multitable {Level} {Dictionary size} {Match length limit}
@item Level @tab Dictionary size @tab Match length limit
@item -0 @tab 64 KiB @tab  16 bytes
@item -1 @tab  1 MiB @tab   5 bytes
@item -2 @tab  1.5 MiB @tab   6 bytes
@item -3 @tab  2 MiB @tab   8 bytes
@item -4 @tab  3 MiB @tab  12 bytes
@item -5 @tab  4 MiB @tab  20 bytes
@item -6 @tab  8 MiB @tab  36 bytes
@item -7 @tab 16 MiB @tab  68 bytes
@item -8 @tab 24 MiB @tab 132 bytes
@item -9 @tab 32 MiB @tab 273 bytes
@end multitable

@item --fast
@itemx --best
Aliases for GNU gzip compatibility.

@end table

Numbers given as arguments to options may be followed by a multiplier
and an optional @samp{B} for "byte".

Table of SI and binary prefixes (unit multipliers):

@multitable {Prefix} {kilobyte  (10^3 = 1000)} {|} {Prefix} {kibibyte (2^10 = 1024)}
@item Prefix @tab Value               @tab | @tab Prefix @tab Value
@item k @tab kilobyte  (10^3 = 1000)  @tab | @tab Ki @tab kibibyte (2^10 = 1024)
@item M @tab megabyte  (10^6)         @tab | @tab Mi @tab mebibyte (2^20)
@item G @tab gigabyte  (10^9)         @tab | @tab Gi @tab gibibyte (2^30)
@item T @tab terabyte  (10^12)        @tab | @tab Ti @tab tebibyte (2^40)
@item P @tab petabyte  (10^15)        @tab | @tab Pi @tab pebibyte (2^50)
@item E @tab exabyte   (10^18)        @tab | @tab Ei @tab exbibyte (2^60)
@item Z @tab zettabyte (10^21)        @tab | @tab Zi @tab zebibyte (2^70)
@item Y @tab yottabyte (10^24)        @tab | @tab Yi @tab yobibyte (2^80)
@end multitable

@sp 1
Exit status: 0 for a normal exit, 1 for environmental problems (file not
found, invalid flags, I/O errors, etc), 2 to indicate a corrupt or
invalid input file, 3 for an internal consistency error (eg, bug) which
caused plzip to panic.


@node Program design
@chapter Program design
@cindex program design

When compressing, plzip divides the input file into chunks and
compresses as many chunks simultaneously as worker threads are chosen,
creating a multimember compressed file.

When decompressing, plzip decompresses as many members simultaneously as
worker threads are chosen. Files that were compressed with lzip will not
be decompressed faster than using lzip (unless the @samp{-b} option was
used) because lzip usually produces single-member files, which can't be
decompressed in parallel.

For each input file, a splitter thread and several worker threads are
created, acting the main thread as muxer (multiplexer) thread. A "packet
courier" takes care of data transfers among threads and limits the
maximum number of data blocks (packets) being processed simultaneously.

The splitter reads data blocks from the input file, and distributes them
to the workers. The workers (de)compress the blocks received from the
splitter. The muxer collects processed packets from the workers, and
writes them to the output file.

When decompressing from a regular file, the splitter is removed and the
workers read directly from the input file. If the output file is also a
regular file, the muxer is also removed and the workers write directly
to the output file. With these optimizations, the use of RAM is greatly
reduced and the decompression speed of large files with many members is
only limited by the number of processors available and by I/O speed.


@node File format
@chapter File format
@cindex file format

Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add, but
when there is no longer anything to take away.@*
--- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

@sp 1
In the diagram below, a box like this:
@verbatim
+---+
|   | <-- the vertical bars might be missing
+---+
@end verbatim

represents one byte; a box like this:
@verbatim
+==============+
|              |
+==============+
@end verbatim

represents a variable number of bytes.

@sp 1
A lzip file consists of a series of "members" (compressed data sets).
The members simply appear one after another in the file, with no
additional information before, between, or after them.

Each member has the following structure:
@verbatim
+--+--+--+--+----+----+=============+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| ID string | VN | DS | LZMA stream | CRC32 |   Data size   |  Member size  |
+--+--+--+--+----+----+=============+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
@end verbatim

All multibyte values are stored in little endian order.

@table @samp
@item ID string (the "magic" bytes)
A four byte string, identifying the lzip format, with the value "LZIP"
(0x4C, 0x5A, 0x49, 0x50).

@item VN (version number, 1 byte)
Just in case something needs to be modified in the future. 1 for now.

@item DS (coded dictionary size, 1 byte)
The dictionary size is calculated by taking a power of 2 (the base size)
and substracting from it a fraction between 0/16 and 7/16 of the base
size.@*
Bits 4-0 contain the base 2 logarithm of the base size (12 to 29).@*
Bits 7-5 contain the numerator of the fraction (0 to 7) to substract
from the base size to obtain the dictionary size.@*
Example: 0xD3 = 2^19 - 6 * 2^15 = 512 KiB - 6 * 32 KiB = 320 KiB@*
Valid values for dictionary size range from 4 KiB to 512 MiB.

@item LZMA stream
The LZMA stream, finished by an end of stream marker. Uses default
values for encoder properties.
@ifnothtml
@xref{Stream format,,,lzip},
@end ifnothtml
@ifhtml
See
@uref{http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/manual/lzip_manual.html#Stream-format,,Stream format}
@end ifhtml
for a complete description.

@item CRC32 (4 bytes)
CRC of the uncompressed original data.

@item Data size (8 bytes)
Size of the uncompressed original data.

@item Member size (8 bytes)
Total size of the member, including header and trailer. This field acts
as a distributed index, allows the verification of stream integrity, and
facilitates safe recovery of undamaged members from multimember files.

@end table


@node Memory requirements
@chapter Memory required to compress and decompress
@cindex memory requirements

The amount of memory required @strong{per thread} is approximately the
following:

@itemize @bullet
@item
For compression at level -0; 1.5 MiB plus 3 times the data size
(@pxref{--data-size}). Default is 4.5 MiB.

@item
For compression at other levels; 11 times the dictionary size plus 3
times the data size. Default is 136 MiB.

@item
For decompression of a regular (seekable) file to another regular file,
or for testing of a regular file; the dictionary size.

(Note that regular files with more than 1024 bytes of trailing data are
treated as non-seekable).

@item
For testing of a non-seekable file or of standard input; the dictionary
size plus up to 5 MiB.

@item
For decompression of a regular file to a non-seekable file or to
standard output; the dictionary size plus up to 32 MiB.

@item
For decompression of a non-seekable file or of standard input; the
dictionary size plus up to 35 MiB.
@end itemize


@node Minimum file sizes
@chapter Minimum file sizes required for full compression speed
@cindex minimum file sizes

When compressing, plzip divides the input file into chunks and
compresses as many chunks simultaneously as worker threads are chosen,
creating a multimember compressed file.

For this to work as expected (and roughly multiply the compression speed
by the number of available processors), the uncompressed file must be at
least as large as the number of worker threads times the chunk size
(@pxref{--data-size}). Else some processors will not get any data to
compress, and compression will be proportionally slower. The maximum
speed increase achievable on a given file is limited by the ratio
@w{(file_size / data_size)}.

The following table shows the minimum uncompressed file size needed for
full use of N processors at a given compression level, using the default
data size for each level:

@multitable {Processors} {512 MiB} {512 MiB} {512 MiB} {512 MiB} {512 MiB} {512 MiB}
@headitem Processors @tab 2 @tab 4 @tab 8 @tab 16 @tab 64 @tab 256
@item Level
@item -0 @tab   2 MiB @tab   4 MiB @tab   8 MiB @tab  16 MiB @tab  64 MiB @tab 256 MiB
@item -1 @tab   4 MiB @tab   8 MiB @tab  16 MiB @tab  32 MiB @tab 128 MiB @tab 512 MiB
@item -2 @tab   6 MiB @tab  12 MiB @tab  24 MiB @tab  48 MiB @tab 192 MiB @tab 768 MiB
@item -3 @tab   8 MiB @tab  16 MiB @tab  32 MiB @tab  64 MiB @tab 256 MiB @tab   1 GiB
@item -4 @tab  12 MiB @tab  24 MiB @tab  48 MiB @tab  96 MiB @tab 384 MiB @tab 1.5 GiB
@item -5 @tab  16 MiB @tab  32 MiB @tab  64 MiB @tab 128 MiB @tab 512 MiB @tab   2 GiB
@item -6 @tab  32 MiB @tab  64 MiB @tab 128 MiB @tab 256 MiB @tab   1 GiB @tab   4 GiB
@item -7 @tab  64 MiB @tab 128 MiB @tab 256 MiB @tab 512 MiB @tab   2 GiB @tab   8 GiB
@item -8 @tab  96 MiB @tab 192 MiB @tab 384 MiB @tab 768 MiB @tab   3 GiB @tab  12 GiB
@item -9 @tab 128 MiB @tab 256 MiB @tab 512 MiB @tab   1 GiB @tab   4 GiB @tab  16 GiB
@end multitable


@node Trailing data
@chapter Extra data appended to the file
@cindex trailing data

Sometimes extra data is found appended to a lzip file after the last
member. Such trailing data may be:

@itemize @bullet
@item
Padding added to make the file size a multiple of some block size, for
example when writing to a tape.

@item
Garbage added by some not totally successful copy operation.

@item
Useful data added by the user; a cryptographically secure hash, a
description of file contents, etc.

@item
Malicious data added to the file in order to make its total size and
hash value (for a chosen hash) coincide with those of another file.

@item
In very rare cases, trailing data could be the corrupt header of another
member. In multimember or concatenated files the probability of
corruption happening in the magic bytes is 5 times smaller than the
probability of getting a false positive caused by the corruption of the
integrity information itself. Therefore it can be considered to be below
the noise level.
@end itemize

Trailing data can be safely ignored in most cases. In some cases, like
that of user-added data, it is expected to be ignored. In those cases
where a file containing trailing data must be rejected, the option
@samp{--trailing-error} can be used. @xref{--trailing-error}.


@node Examples
@chapter A small tutorial with examples
@cindex examples

WARNING! Even if plzip is bug-free, other causes may result in a corrupt
compressed file (bugs in the system libraries, memory errors, etc).
Therefore, if the data you are going to compress are important, give the
@samp{--keep} option to plzip and don't remove the original file until
you verify the compressed file with a command like
@w{@samp{plzip -cd file.lz | cmp file -}}.

@sp 1
@noindent
Example 1: Replace a regular file with its compressed version
@samp{file.lz} and show the compression ratio.

@example
plzip -v file
@end example

@sp 1
@noindent
Example 2: Like example 1 but the created @samp{file.lz} has a block
size of 1 MiB. The compression ratio is not shown.

@example
plzip -B 1MiB file
@end example

@sp 1
@noindent
Example 3: Restore a regular file from its compressed version
@samp{file.lz}. If the operation is successful, @samp{file.lz} is
removed.

@example
plzip -d file.lz
@end example

@sp 1
@noindent
Example 4: Verify the integrity of the compressed file @samp{file.lz}
and show status.

@example
plzip -tv file.lz
@end example

@sp 1
@noindent
Example 5: Compress a whole device in /dev/sdc and send the output to
@samp{file.lz}.

@example
plzip -c /dev/sdc > file.lz
@end example

@sp 1
@anchor{concat-example}
@noindent
Example 6: The right way of concatenating compressed files.
@xref{Trailing data}.

@example
Don't do this
  cat file1.lz file2.lz file3.lz | plzip -d
Do this instead
  plzip -cd file1.lz file2.lz file3.lz
@end example

@sp 1
@noindent
Example 7: Decompress @samp{file.lz} partially until 10 KiB of
decompressed data are produced.

@example
plzip -cd file.lz | dd bs=1024 count=10
@end example

@sp 1
@noindent
Example 8: Decompress @samp{file.lz} partially from decompressed byte
10000 to decompressed byte 15000 (5000 bytes are produced).

@example
plzip -cd file.lz | dd bs=1000 skip=10 count=5
@end example


@node Problems
@chapter Reporting bugs
@cindex bugs
@cindex getting help

There are probably bugs in plzip. There are certainly errors and
omissions in this manual. If you report them, they will get fixed. If
you don't, no one will ever know about them and they will remain unfixed
for all eternity, if not longer.

If you find a bug in plzip, please send electronic mail to
@email{lzip-bug@@nongnu.org}. Include the version number, which you can
find by running @w{@code{plzip --version}}.


@node Concept index
@unnumbered Concept index

@printindex cp

@bye