| # zstd | |
| [Zstandard](https://facebook.github.io/zstd/) is a real-time compression algorithm, providing high compression ratios. | |
| It offers a very wide range of compression / speed trade-off, while being backed by a very fast decoder. | |
| A high performance compression algorithm is implemented. For now focused on speed. | |
| This package provides [compression](#Compressor) to and [decompression](#Decompressor) of Zstandard content. | |
| This package is pure Go. Use `noasm` and `nounsafe` to disable relevant features. | |
| The `zstd` package is provided as open source software using a Go standard license. | |
| Currently the package is heavily optimized for 64 bit processors and will be significantly slower on 32 bit processors. | |
| For seekable zstd streams, see [this excellent package](https://github.com/SaveTheRbtz/zstd-seekable-format-go). | |
| ## Installation | |
| Install using `go get -u github.com/klauspost/compress`. The package is located in `github.com/klauspost/compress/zstd`. | |
| [](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/klauspost/compress/zstd) | |
| ## Compressor | |
| ### Status: | |
| STABLE - there may always be subtle bugs, a wide variety of content has been tested and the library is actively | |
| used by several projects. This library is being [fuzz-tested](https://github.com/klauspost/compress-fuzz) for all updates. | |
| There may still be specific combinations of data types/size/settings that could lead to edge cases, | |
| so as always, testing is recommended. | |
| For now, a high speed (fastest) and medium-fast (default) compressor has been implemented. | |
| * The "Fastest" compression ratio is roughly equivalent to zstd level 1. | |
| * The "Default" compression ratio is roughly equivalent to zstd level 3 (default). | |
| * The "Better" compression ratio is roughly equivalent to zstd level 7. | |
| * The "Best" compression ratio is roughly equivalent to zstd level 11. | |
| In terms of speed, it is typically 2x as fast as the stdlib deflate/gzip in its fastest mode. | |
| The compression ratio compared to stdlib is around level 3, but usually 3x as fast. | |
| ### Usage | |
| An Encoder can be used for either compressing a stream via the | |
| `io.WriteCloser` interface supported by the Encoder or as multiple independent | |
| tasks via the `EncodeAll` function. | |
| Smaller encodes are encouraged to use the EncodeAll function. | |
| Use `NewWriter` to create a new instance that can be used for both. | |
| To create a writer with default options, do like this: | |
| ```Go | |
| // Compress input to output. | |
| func Compress(in io.Reader, out io.Writer) error { | |
| enc, err := zstd.NewWriter(out) | |
| if err != nil { | |
| return err | |
| } | |
| _, err = io.Copy(enc, in) | |
| if err != nil { | |
| enc.Close() | |
| return err | |
| } | |
| return enc.Close() | |
| } | |
| ``` | |
| Now you can encode by writing data to `enc`. The output will be finished writing when `Close()` is called. | |
| Even if your encode fails, you should still call `Close()` to release any resources that may be held up. | |
| The above is fine for big encodes. However, whenever possible try to *reuse* the writer. | |
| To reuse the encoder, you can use the `Reset(io.Writer)` function to change to another output. | |
| This will allow the encoder to reuse all resources and avoid wasteful allocations. | |
| Currently stream encoding has 'light' concurrency, meaning up to 2 goroutines can be working on part | |
| of a stream. This is independent of the `WithEncoderConcurrency(n)`, but that is likely to change | |
| in the future. So if you want to limit concurrency for future updates, specify the concurrency | |
| you would like. | |
| If you would like stream encoding to be done without spawning async goroutines, use `WithEncoderConcurrency(1)` | |
| which will compress input as each block is completed, blocking on writes until each has completed. | |
| You can specify your desired compression level using `WithEncoderLevel()` option. Currently only pre-defined | |
| compression settings can be specified. | |
| #### Future Compatibility Guarantees | |
| This will be an evolving project. When using this package it is important to note that both the compression efficiency and speed may change. | |
| The goal will be to keep the default efficiency at the default zstd (level 3). | |
| However the encoding should never be assumed to remain the same, | |
| and you should not use hashes of compressed output for similarity checks. | |
| The Encoder can be assumed to produce the same output from the exact same code version. | |
| However, the may be modes in the future that break this, | |
| although they will not be enabled without an explicit option. | |
| This encoder is not designed to (and will probably never) output the exact same bitstream as the reference encoder. | |
| Also note, that the cgo decompressor currently does not [report all errors on invalid input](https://github.com/DataDog/zstd/issues/59), | |
| [omits error checks](https://github.com/DataDog/zstd/issues/61), [ignores checksums](https://github.com/DataDog/zstd/issues/43) | |
| and seems to ignore concatenated streams, even though [it is part of the spec](https://github.com/facebook/zstd/blob/dev/doc/zstd_compression_format.md#frames). | |
| #### Blocks | |
| For compressing small blocks, the returned encoder has a function called `EncodeAll(src, dst []byte) []byte`. | |
| `EncodeAll` will encode all input in src and append it to dst. | |
| This function can be called concurrently. | |
| Each call will only run on a same goroutine as the caller. | |
| Encoded blocks can be concatenated and the result will be the combined input stream. | |
| Data compressed with EncodeAll can be decoded with the Decoder, using either a stream or `DecodeAll`. | |
| Especially when encoding blocks you should take special care to reuse the encoder. | |
| This will effectively make it run without allocations after a warmup period. | |
| To make it run completely without allocations, supply a destination buffer with space for all content. | |
| ```Go | |
| import "github.com/klauspost/compress/zstd" | |
| // Create a writer that caches compressors. | |
| // For this operation type we supply a nil Reader. | |
| var encoder, _ = zstd.NewWriter(nil) | |
| // Compress a buffer. | |
| // If you have a destination buffer, the allocation in the call can also be eliminated. | |
| func Compress(src []byte) []byte { | |
| return encoder.EncodeAll(src, make([]byte, 0, len(src))) | |
| } | |
| ``` | |
| You can control the maximum number of concurrent encodes using the `WithEncoderConcurrency(n)` | |
| option when creating the writer. | |
| Using the Encoder for both a stream and individual blocks concurrently is safe. | |
| ### Performance | |
| I have collected some speed examples to compare speed and compression against other compressors. | |
| * `file` is the input file. | |
| * `out` is the compressor used. `zskp` is this package. `zstd` is the Datadog cgo library. `gzstd/gzkp` is gzip standard and this library. | |
| * `level` is the compression level used. For `zskp` level 1 is "fastest", level 2 is "default"; 3 is "better", 4 is "best". | |
| * `insize`/`outsize` is the input/output size. | |
| * `millis` is the number of milliseconds used for compression. | |
| * `mb/s` is megabytes (2^20 bytes) per second. | |
| ``` | |
| Silesia Corpus: | |
| http://sun.aei.polsl.pl/~sdeor/corpus/silesia.zip | |
| This package: | |
| file out level insize outsize millis mb/s | |
| silesia.tar zskp 1 211947520 73821326 634 318.47 | |
| silesia.tar zskp 2 211947520 67655404 1508 133.96 | |
| silesia.tar zskp 3 211947520 64746933 3000 67.37 | |
| silesia.tar zskp 4 211947520 60073508 16926 11.94 | |
| cgo zstd: | |
| silesia.tar zstd 1 211947520 73605392 543 371.56 | |
| silesia.tar zstd 3 211947520 66793289 864 233.68 | |
| silesia.tar zstd 6 211947520 62916450 1913 105.66 | |
| silesia.tar zstd 9 211947520 60212393 5063 39.92 | |
| gzip, stdlib/this package: | |
| silesia.tar gzstd 1 211947520 80007735 1498 134.87 | |
| silesia.tar gzkp 1 211947520 80088272 1009 200.31 | |
| GOB stream of binary data. Highly compressible. | |
| https://files.klauspost.com/compress/gob-stream.7z | |
| file out level insize outsize millis mb/s | |
| gob-stream zskp 1 1911399616 233948096 3230 564.34 | |
| gob-stream zskp 2 1911399616 203997694 4997 364.73 | |
| gob-stream zskp 3 1911399616 173526523 13435 135.68 | |
| gob-stream zskp 4 1911399616 162195235 47559 38.33 | |
| gob-stream zstd 1 1911399616 249810424 2637 691.26 | |
| gob-stream zstd 3 1911399616 208192146 3490 522.31 | |
| gob-stream zstd 6 1911399616 193632038 6687 272.56 | |
| gob-stream zstd 9 1911399616 177620386 16175 112.70 | |
| gob-stream gzstd 1 1911399616 357382013 9046 201.49 | |
| gob-stream gzkp 1 1911399616 359136669 4885 373.08 | |
| The test data for the Large Text Compression Benchmark is the first | |
| 10^9 bytes of the English Wikipedia dump on Mar. 3, 2006. | |
| http://mattmahoney.net/dc/textdata.html | |
| file out level insize outsize millis mb/s | |
| enwik9 zskp 1 1000000000 343833605 3687 258.64 | |
| enwik9 zskp 2 1000000000 317001237 7672 124.29 | |
| enwik9 zskp 3 1000000000 291915823 15923 59.89 | |
| enwik9 zskp 4 1000000000 261710291 77697 12.27 | |
| enwik9 zstd 1 1000000000 358072021 3110 306.65 | |
| enwik9 zstd 3 1000000000 313734672 4784 199.35 | |
| enwik9 zstd 6 1000000000 295138875 10290 92.68 | |
| enwik9 zstd 9 1000000000 278348700 28549 33.40 | |
| enwik9 gzstd 1 1000000000 382578136 8608 110.78 | |
| enwik9 gzkp 1 1000000000 382781160 5628 169.45 | |
| Highly compressible JSON file. | |
| https://files.klauspost.com/compress/github-june-2days-2019.json.zst | |
| file out level insize outsize millis mb/s | |
| github-june-2days-2019.json zskp 1 6273951764 697439532 9789 611.17 | |
| github-june-2days-2019.json zskp 2 6273951764 610876538 18553 322.49 | |
| github-june-2days-2019.json zskp 3 6273951764 517662858 44186 135.41 | |
| github-june-2days-2019.json zskp 4 6273951764 464617114 165373 36.18 | |
| github-june-2days-2019.json zstd 1 6273951764 766284037 8450 708.00 | |
| github-june-2days-2019.json zstd 3 6273951764 661889476 10927 547.57 | |
| github-june-2days-2019.json zstd 6 6273951764 642756859 22996 260.18 | |
| github-june-2days-2019.json zstd 9 6273951764 601974523 52413 114.16 | |
| github-june-2days-2019.json gzstd 1 6273951764 1164397768 26793 223.32 | |
| github-june-2days-2019.json gzkp 1 6273951764 1120631856 17693 338.16 | |
| VM Image, Linux mint with a few installed applications: | |
| https://files.klauspost.com/compress/rawstudio-mint14.7z | |
| file out level insize outsize millis mb/s | |
| rawstudio-mint14.tar zskp 1 8558382592 3718400221 18206 448.29 | |
| rawstudio-mint14.tar zskp 2 8558382592 3326118337 37074 220.15 | |
| rawstudio-mint14.tar zskp 3 8558382592 3163842361 87306 93.49 | |
| rawstudio-mint14.tar zskp 4 8558382592 2970480650 783862 10.41 | |
| rawstudio-mint14.tar zstd 1 8558382592 3609250104 17136 476.27 | |
| rawstudio-mint14.tar zstd 3 8558382592 3341679997 29262 278.92 | |
| rawstudio-mint14.tar zstd 6 8558382592 3235846406 77904 104.77 | |
| rawstudio-mint14.tar zstd 9 8558382592 3160778861 140946 57.91 | |
| rawstudio-mint14.tar gzstd 1 8558382592 3926234992 51345 158.96 | |
| rawstudio-mint14.tar gzkp 1 8558382592 3960117298 36722 222.26 | |
| CSV data: | |
| https://files.klauspost.com/compress/nyc-taxi-data-10M.csv.zst | |
| file out level insize outsize millis mb/s | |
| nyc-taxi-data-10M.csv zskp 1 3325605752 641319332 9462 335.17 | |
| nyc-taxi-data-10M.csv zskp 2 3325605752 588976126 17570 180.50 | |
| nyc-taxi-data-10M.csv zskp 3 3325605752 529329260 32432 97.79 | |
| nyc-taxi-data-10M.csv zskp 4 3325605752 474949772 138025 22.98 | |
| nyc-taxi-data-10M.csv zstd 1 3325605752 687399637 8233 385.18 | |
| nyc-taxi-data-10M.csv zstd 3 3325605752 598514411 10065 315.07 | |
| nyc-taxi-data-10M.csv zstd 6 3325605752 570522953 20038 158.27 | |
| nyc-taxi-data-10M.csv zstd 9 3325605752 517554797 64565 49.12 | |
| nyc-taxi-data-10M.csv gzstd 1 3325605752 928654908 21270 149.11 | |
| nyc-taxi-data-10M.csv gzkp 1 3325605752 922273214 13929 227.68 | |
| ``` | |
| ## Decompressor | |
| Status: STABLE - there may still be subtle bugs, but a wide variety of content has been tested. | |
| This library is being continuously [fuzz-tested](https://github.com/klauspost/compress-fuzz), | |
| kindly supplied by [fuzzit.dev](https://fuzzit.dev/). | |
| The main purpose of the fuzz testing is to ensure that it is not possible to crash the decoder, | |
| or run it past its limits with ANY input provided. | |
| ### Usage | |
| The package has been designed for two main usages, big streams of data and smaller in-memory buffers. | |
| There are two main usages of the package for these. Both of them are accessed by creating a `Decoder`. | |
| For streaming use a simple setup could look like this: | |
| ```Go | |
| import "github.com/klauspost/compress/zstd" | |
| func Decompress(in io.Reader, out io.Writer) error { | |
| d, err := zstd.NewReader(in) | |
| if err != nil { | |
| return err | |
| } | |
| defer d.Close() | |
| // Copy content... | |
| _, err = io.Copy(out, d) | |
| return err | |
| } | |
| ``` | |
| It is important to use the "Close" function when you no longer need the Reader to stop running goroutines, | |
| when running with default settings. | |
| Goroutines will exit once an error has been returned, including `io.EOF` at the end of a stream. | |
| Streams are decoded concurrently in 4 asynchronous stages to give the best possible throughput. | |
| However, if you prefer synchronous decompression, use `WithDecoderConcurrency(1)` which will decompress data | |
| as it is being requested only. | |
| For decoding buffers, it could look something like this: | |
| ```Go | |
| import "github.com/klauspost/compress/zstd" | |
| // Create a reader that caches decompressors. | |
| // For this operation type we supply a nil Reader. | |
| var decoder, _ = zstd.NewReader(nil, zstd.WithDecoderConcurrency(0)) | |
| // Decompress a buffer. We don't supply a destination buffer, | |
| // so it will be allocated by the decoder. | |
| func Decompress(src []byte) ([]byte, error) { | |
| return decoder.DecodeAll(src, nil) | |
| } | |
| ``` | |
| Both of these cases should provide the functionality needed. | |
| The decoder can be used for *concurrent* decompression of multiple buffers. | |
| By default 4 decompressors will be created. | |
| It will only allow a certain number of concurrent operations to run. | |
| To tweak that yourself use the `WithDecoderConcurrency(n)` option when creating the decoder. | |
| It is possible to use `WithDecoderConcurrency(0)` to create GOMAXPROCS decoders. | |
| ### Dictionaries | |
| Data compressed with [dictionaries](https://github.com/facebook/zstd#the-case-for-small-data-compression) can be decompressed. | |
| Dictionaries are added individually to Decoders. | |
| Dictionaries are generated by the `zstd --train` command and contains an initial state for the decoder. | |
| To add a dictionary use the `WithDecoderDicts(dicts ...[]byte)` option with the dictionary data. | |
| Several dictionaries can be added at once. | |
| The dictionary will be used automatically for the data that specifies them. | |
| A re-used Decoder will still contain the dictionaries registered. | |
| When registering multiple dictionaries with the same ID, the last one will be used. | |
| It is possible to use dictionaries when compressing data. | |
| To enable a dictionary use `WithEncoderDict(dict []byte)`. Here only one dictionary will be used | |
| and it will likely be used even if it doesn't improve compression. | |
| The used dictionary must be used to decompress the content. | |
| For any real gains, the dictionary should be built with similar data. | |
| If an unsuitable dictionary is used the output may be slightly larger than using no dictionary. | |
| Use the [zstd commandline tool](https://github.com/facebook/zstd/releases) to build a dictionary from sample data. | |
| For information see [zstd dictionary information](https://github.com/facebook/zstd#the-case-for-small-data-compression). | |
| For now there is a fixed startup performance penalty for compressing content with dictionaries. | |
| This will likely be improved over time. Just be aware to test performance when implementing. | |
| ### Allocation-less operation | |
| The decoder has been designed to operate without allocations after a warmup. | |
| This means that you should *store* the decoder for best performance. | |
| To re-use a stream decoder, use the `Reset(r io.Reader) error` to switch to another stream. | |
| A decoder can safely be re-used even if the previous stream failed. | |
| To release the resources, you must call the `Close()` function on a decoder. | |
| After this it can *no longer be reused*, but all running goroutines will be stopped. | |
| So you *must* use this if you will no longer need the Reader. | |
| For decompressing smaller buffers a single decoder can be used. | |
| When decoding buffers, you can supply a destination slice with length 0 and your expected capacity. | |
| In this case no unneeded allocations should be made. | |
| ### Concurrency | |
| The buffer decoder does everything on the same goroutine and does nothing concurrently. | |
| It can however decode several buffers concurrently. Use `WithDecoderConcurrency(n)` to limit that. | |
| The stream decoder will create goroutines that: | |
| 1) Reads input and splits the input into blocks. | |
| 2) Decompression of literals. | |
| 3) Decompression of sequences. | |
| 4) Reconstruction of output stream. | |
| So effectively this also means the decoder will "read ahead" and prepare data to always be available for output. | |
| The concurrency level will, for streams, determine how many blocks ahead the compression will start. | |
| Since "blocks" are quite dependent on the output of the previous block stream decoding will only have limited concurrency. | |
| In practice this means that concurrency is often limited to utilizing about 3 cores effectively. | |
| ### Benchmarks | |
| The first two are streaming decodes and the last are smaller inputs. | |
| Running on AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16-Core Processor. AMD64 assembly used. | |
| ``` | |
| BenchmarkDecoderSilesia-32 5 206878840 ns/op 1024.50 MB/s 49808 B/op 43 allocs/op | |
| BenchmarkDecoderEnwik9-32 1 1271809000 ns/op 786.28 MB/s 72048 B/op 52 allocs/op | |
| Concurrent blocks, performance: | |
| BenchmarkDecoder_DecodeAllParallel/kppkn.gtb.zst-32 67356 17857 ns/op 10321.96 MB/s 22.48 pct 102 B/op 0 allocs/op | |
| BenchmarkDecoder_DecodeAllParallel/geo.protodata.zst-32 266656 4421 ns/op 26823.21 MB/s 11.89 pct 19 B/op 0 allocs/op | |
| BenchmarkDecoder_DecodeAllParallel/plrabn12.txt.zst-32 20992 56842 ns/op 8477.17 MB/s 39.90 pct 754 B/op 0 allocs/op | |
| BenchmarkDecoder_DecodeAllParallel/lcet10.txt.zst-32 27456 43932 ns/op 9714.01 MB/s 33.27 pct 524 B/op 0 allocs/op | |
| BenchmarkDecoder_DecodeAllParallel/asyoulik.txt.zst-32 78432 15047 ns/op 8319.15 MB/s 40.34 pct 66 B/op 0 allocs/op | |
| BenchmarkDecoder_DecodeAllParallel/alice29.txt.zst-32 65800 18436 ns/op 8249.63 MB/s 37.75 pct 88 B/op 0 allocs/op | |
| BenchmarkDecoder_DecodeAllParallel/html_x_4.zst-32 102993 11523 ns/op 35546.09 MB/s 3.637 pct 143 B/op 0 allocs/op | |
| BenchmarkDecoder_DecodeAllParallel/paper-100k.pdf.zst-32 1000000 1070 ns/op 95720.98 MB/s 80.53 pct 3 B/op 0 allocs/op | |
| BenchmarkDecoder_DecodeAllParallel/fireworks.jpeg.zst-32 749802 1752 ns/op 70272.35 MB/s 100.0 pct 5 B/op 0 allocs/op | |
| BenchmarkDecoder_DecodeAllParallel/urls.10K.zst-32 22640 52934 ns/op 13263.37 MB/s 26.25 pct 1014 B/op 0 allocs/op | |
| BenchmarkDecoder_DecodeAllParallel/html.zst-32 226412 5232 ns/op 19572.27 MB/s 14.49 pct 20 B/op 0 allocs/op | |
| BenchmarkDecoder_DecodeAllParallel/comp-data.bin.zst-32 923041 1276 ns/op 3194.71 MB/s 31.26 pct 0 B/op 0 allocs/op | |
| ``` | |
| This reflects the performance around May 2022, but this may be out of date. | |
| ## Zstd inside ZIP files | |
| It is possible to use zstandard to compress individual files inside zip archives. | |
| While this isn't widely supported it can be useful for internal files. | |
| To support the compression and decompression of these files you must register a compressor and decompressor. | |
| It is highly recommended registering the (de)compressors on individual zip Reader/Writer and NOT | |
| use the global registration functions. The main reason for this is that 2 registrations from | |
| different packages will result in a panic. | |
| It is a good idea to only have a single compressor and decompressor, since they can be used for multiple zip | |
| files concurrently, and using a single instance will allow reusing some resources. | |
| See [this example](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/klauspost/compress/zstd#example-ZipCompressor) for | |
| how to compress and decompress files inside zip archives. | |
| # Contributions | |
| Contributions are always welcome. | |
| For new features/fixes, remember to add tests and for performance enhancements include benchmarks. | |
| For general feedback and experience reports, feel free to open an issue or write me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/sh0dan). | |
| This package includes the excellent [`github.com/cespare/xxhash`](https://github.com/cespare/xxhash) package Copyright (c) 2016 Caleb Spare. |