1LZMA SDK 9.38 2------------- 3 4LZMA SDK provides the documentation, samples, header files, 5libraries, and tools you need to develop applications that 6use 7z / LZMA / LZMA2 / XZ compression. 7 8LZMA is an improved version of famous LZ77 compression algorithm. 9It was improved in way of maximum increasing of compression ratio, 10keeping high decompression speed and low memory requirements for 11decompressing. 12 13LZMA2 is a LZMA based compression method. LZMA2 provides better 14multithreading support for compression than LZMA and some other improvements. 15 167z is a file format for data compression and file archiving. 177z is a main file format for 7-Zip compression program (www.7-zip.org). 187z format supports different compression methods: LZMA, LZMA2 and others. 197z also supports AES-256 based encryption. 20 21XZ is a file format for data compression that uses LZMA2 compression. 22XZ format provides additional features: SHA/CRC check, filters for 23improved compression ratio, splitting to blocks and streams, 24 25 26 27LICENSE 28------- 29 30LZMA SDK is written and placed in the public domain by Igor Pavlov. 31 32Some code in LZMA SDK is based on public domain code from another developers: 33 1) PPMd var.H (2001): Dmitry Shkarin 34 2) SHA-256: Wei Dai (Crypto++ library) 35 36You can copy, modify, distribute and perform LZMA SDK code, even for commercial purposes, 37all without asking permission. 38 39LZMA SDK code is compatible with open source licenses, for example, you can 40include it to GNU GPL or GNU LGPL code. 41 42 43LZMA SDK Contents 44----------------- 45 46 Source code: 47 48 - C / C++ / C# / Java - LZMA compression and decompression 49 - C / C++ - LZMA2 compression and decompression 50 - C / C++ - XZ compression and decompression 51 - C - 7z decompression 52 - C++ - 7z compression and decompression 53 - C - small SFXs for installers (7z decompression) 54 - C++ - SFXs and SFXs for installers (7z decompression) 55 56 Precomiled binaries: 57 58 - console programs for lzma / 7z / xz compression and decompression 59 - SFX modules for installers. 60 61 62UNIX/Linux version 63------------------ 64To compile C++ version of file->file LZMA encoding, go to directory 65CPP/7zip/Bundles/LzmaCon 66and call make to recompile it: 67 make -f makefile.gcc clean all 68 69In some UNIX/Linux versions you must compile LZMA with static libraries. 70To compile with static libraries, you can use 71LIB = -lm -static 72 73Also you can use p7zip (port of 7-Zip for POSIX systems like Unix or Linux): 74 75 http://p7zip.sourceforge.net/ 76 77 78Files 79----- 80 81DOC/7zC.txt - 7z ANSI-C Decoder description 82DOC/7zFormat.txt - 7z Format description 83DOC/installer.txt - information about 7-Zip for installers 84DOC/lzma.txt - LZMA compression description 85DOC/lzma-sdk.txt - LZMA SDK description (this file) 86DOC/lzma-history.txt - history of LZMA SDK 87DOC/lzma-specification.txt - Specification of LZMA 88DOC/Methods.txt - Compression method IDs for .7z 89 90bin/installer/ - example script to create installer that uses SFX module, 91 92bin/7zdec.exe - simplified 7z archive decoder 93bin/7zr.exe - 7-Zip console program (reduced version) 94bin/x64/7zr.exe - 7-Zip console program (reduced version) (x64 version) 95bin/lzma.exe - file->file LZMA encoder/decoder for Windows 96bin/7zS2.sfx - small SFX module for installers (GUI version) 97bin/7zS2con.sfx - small SFX module for installers (Console version) 98bin/7zSD.sfx - SFX module for installers. 99 100 1017zDec.exe 102--------- 1037zDec.exe is simplified 7z archive decoder. 104It supports only LZMA, LZMA2, and PPMd methods. 1057zDec decodes whole solid block from 7z archive to RAM. 106The RAM consumption can be high. 107 108 109 110 111Source code structure 112--------------------- 113 114 115Asm/ - asm files (optimized code for CRC calculation and Intel-AES encryption) 116 117C/ - C files (compression / decompression and other) 118 Util/ 119 7z - 7z decoder program (decoding 7z files) 120 Lzma - LZMA program (file->file LZMA encoder/decoder). 121 LzmaLib - LZMA library (.DLL for Windows) 122 SfxSetup - small SFX module for installers 123 124CPP/ -- CPP files 125 126 Common - common files for C++ projects 127 Windows - common files for Windows related code 128 129 7zip - files related to 7-Zip 130 131 Archive - files related to archiving 132 133 Common - common files for archive handling 134 7z - 7z C++ Encoder/Decoder 135 136 Bundles - Modules that are bundles of other modules (files) 137 138 Alone7z - 7zr.exe: Standalone 7-Zip console program (reduced version) 139 Format7zExtractR - 7zxr.dll: Reduced version of 7z DLL: extracting from 7z/LZMA/BCJ/BCJ2. 140 Format7zR - 7zr.dll: Reduced version of 7z DLL: extracting/compressing to 7z/LZMA/BCJ/BCJ2 141 LzmaCon - lzma.exe: LZMA compression/decompression 142 LzmaSpec - example code for LZMA Specification 143 SFXCon - 7zCon.sfx: Console 7z SFX module 144 SFXSetup - 7zS.sfx: 7z SFX module for installers 145 SFXWin - 7z.sfx: GUI 7z SFX module 146 147 Common - common files for 7-Zip 148 149 Compress - files for compression/decompression 150 151 Crypto - files for encryption / decompression 152 153 UI - User Interface files 154 155 Client7z - Test application for 7za.dll, 7zr.dll, 7zxr.dll 156 Common - Common UI files 157 Console - Code for console program (7z.exe) 158 Explorer - Some code from 7-Zip Shell extension 159 FileManager - Some GUI code from 7-Zip File Manager 160 GUI - Some GUI code from 7-Zip 161 162 163CS/ - C# files 164 7zip 165 Common - some common files for 7-Zip 166 Compress - files related to compression/decompression 167 LZ - files related to LZ (Lempel-Ziv) compression algorithm 168 LZMA - LZMA compression/decompression 169 LzmaAlone - file->file LZMA compression/decompression 170 RangeCoder - Range Coder (special code of compression/decompression) 171 172Java/ - Java files 173 SevenZip 174 Compression - files related to compression/decompression 175 LZ - files related to LZ (Lempel-Ziv) compression algorithm 176 LZMA - LZMA compression/decompression 177 RangeCoder - Range Coder (special code of compression/decompression) 178 179 180Note: 181 Asm / C / C++ source code of LZMA SDK is part of 7-Zip's source code. 182 7-Zip's source code can be downloaded from 7-Zip's SourceForge page: 183 184 http://sourceforge.net/projects/sevenzip/ 185 186 187 188LZMA features 189------------- 190 - Variable dictionary size (up to 1 GB) 191 - Estimated compressing speed: about 2 MB/s on 2 GHz CPU 192 - Estimated decompressing speed: 193 - 20-30 MB/s on modern 2 GHz cpu 194 - 1-2 MB/s on 200 MHz simple RISC cpu: (ARM, MIPS, PowerPC) 195 - Small memory requirements for decompressing (16 KB + DictionarySize) 196 - Small code size for decompressing: 5-8 KB 197 198LZMA decoder uses only integer operations and can be 199implemented in any modern 32-bit CPU (or on 16-bit CPU with some conditions). 200 201Some critical operations that affect the speed of LZMA decompression: 202 1) 32*16 bit integer multiply 203 2) Mispredicted branches (penalty mostly depends from pipeline length) 204 3) 32-bit shift and arithmetic operations 205 206The speed of LZMA decompressing mostly depends from CPU speed. 207Memory speed has no big meaning. But if your CPU has small data cache, 208overall weight of memory speed will slightly increase. 209 210 211How To Use 212---------- 213 214Using LZMA encoder/decoder executable 215-------------------------------------- 216 217Usage: LZMA <e|d> inputFile outputFile [<switches>...] 218 219 e: encode file 220 221 d: decode file 222 223 b: Benchmark. There are two tests: compressing and decompressing 224 with LZMA method. Benchmark shows rating in MIPS (million 225 instructions per second). Rating value is calculated from 226 measured speed and it is normalized with Intel's Core 2 results. 227 Also Benchmark checks possible hardware errors (RAM 228 errors in most cases). Benchmark uses these settings: 229 (-a1, -d21, -fb32, -mfbt4). You can change only -d parameter. 230 Also you can change the number of iterations. Example for 30 iterations: 231 LZMA b 30 232 Default number of iterations is 10. 233 234<Switches> 235 236 237 -a{N}: set compression mode 0 = fast, 1 = normal 238 default: 1 (normal) 239 240 d{N}: Sets Dictionary size - [0, 30], default: 23 (8MB) 241 The maximum value for dictionary size is 1 GB = 2^30 bytes. 242 Dictionary size is calculated as DictionarySize = 2^N bytes. 243 For decompressing file compressed by LZMA method with dictionary 244 size D = 2^N you need about D bytes of memory (RAM). 245 246 -fb{N}: set number of fast bytes - [5, 273], default: 128 247 Usually big number gives a little bit better compression ratio 248 and slower compression process. 249 250 -lc{N}: set number of literal context bits - [0, 8], default: 3 251 Sometimes lc=4 gives gain for big files. 252 253 -lp{N}: set number of literal pos bits - [0, 4], default: 0 254 lp switch is intended for periodical data when period is 255 equal 2^N. For example, for 32-bit (4 bytes) 256 periodical data you can use lp=2. Often it's better to set lc0, 257 if you change lp switch. 258 259 -pb{N}: set number of pos bits - [0, 4], default: 2 260 pb switch is intended for periodical data 261 when period is equal 2^N. 262 263 -mf{MF_ID}: set Match Finder. Default: bt4. 264 Algorithms from hc* group doesn't provide good compression 265 ratio, but they often works pretty fast in combination with 266 fast mode (-a0). 267 268 Memory requirements depend from dictionary size 269 (parameter "d" in table below). 270 271 MF_ID Memory Description 272 273 bt2 d * 9.5 + 4MB Binary Tree with 2 bytes hashing. 274 bt3 d * 11.5 + 4MB Binary Tree with 3 bytes hashing. 275 bt4 d * 11.5 + 4MB Binary Tree with 4 bytes hashing. 276 hc4 d * 7.5 + 4MB Hash Chain with 4 bytes hashing. 277 278 -eos: write End Of Stream marker. By default LZMA doesn't write 279 eos marker, since LZMA decoder knows uncompressed size 280 stored in .lzma file header. 281 282 -si: Read data from stdin (it will write End Of Stream marker). 283 -so: Write data to stdout 284 285 286Examples: 287 2881) LZMA e file.bin file.lzma -d16 -lc0 289 290compresses file.bin to file.lzma with 64 KB dictionary (2^16=64K) 291and 0 literal context bits. -lc0 allows to reduce memory requirements 292for decompression. 293 294 2952) LZMA e file.bin file.lzma -lc0 -lp2 296 297compresses file.bin to file.lzma with settings suitable 298for 32-bit periodical data (for example, ARM or MIPS code). 299 3003) LZMA d file.lzma file.bin 301 302decompresses file.lzma to file.bin. 303 304 305Compression ratio hints 306----------------------- 307 308Recommendations 309--------------- 310 311To increase the compression ratio for LZMA compressing it's desirable 312to have aligned data (if it's possible) and also it's desirable to locate 313data in such order, where code is grouped in one place and data is 314grouped in other place (it's better than such mixing: code, data, code, 315data, ...). 316 317 318Filters 319------- 320You can increase the compression ratio for some data types, using 321special filters before compressing. For example, it's possible to 322increase the compression ratio on 5-10% for code for those CPU ISAs: 323x86, IA-64, ARM, ARM-Thumb, PowerPC, SPARC. 324 325You can find C source code of such filters in C/Bra*.* files 326 327You can check the compression ratio gain of these filters with such 3287-Zip commands (example for ARM code): 329No filter: 330 7z a a1.7z a.bin -m0=lzma 331 332With filter for little-endian ARM code: 333 7z a a2.7z a.bin -m0=arm -m1=lzma 334 335It works in such manner: 336Compressing = Filter_encoding + LZMA_encoding 337Decompressing = LZMA_decoding + Filter_decoding 338 339Compressing and decompressing speed of such filters is very high, 340so it will not increase decompressing time too much. 341Moreover, it reduces decompression time for LZMA_decoding, 342since compression ratio with filtering is higher. 343 344These filters convert CALL (calling procedure) instructions 345from relative offsets to absolute addresses, so such data becomes more 346compressible. 347 348For some ISAs (for example, for MIPS) it's impossible to get gain from such filter. 349 350 351 352--- 353 354http://www.7-zip.org 355http://www.7-zip.org/sdk.html 356http://www.7-zip.org/support.html 357