136 lines
5.1 KiB
Plaintext
136 lines
5.1 KiB
Plaintext
Snappy framing format description
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Last revised: 2013-10-25
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This format decribes a framing format for Snappy, allowing compressing to
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files or streams that can then more easily be decompressed without having
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to hold the entire stream in memory. It also provides data checksums to
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help verify integrity. It does not provide metadata checksums, so it does
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not protect against e.g. all forms of truncations.
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Implementation of the framing format is optional for Snappy compressors and
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decompressor; it is not part of the Snappy core specification.
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1. General structure
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The file consists solely of chunks, lying back-to-back with no padding
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in between. Each chunk consists first a single byte of chunk identifier,
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then a three-byte little-endian length of the chunk in bytes (from 0 to
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16777215, inclusive), and then the data if any. The four bytes of chunk
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header is not counted in the data length.
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The different chunk types are listed below. The first chunk must always
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be the stream identifier chunk (see section 4.1, below). The stream
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ends when the file ends -- there is no explicit end-of-file marker.
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2. File type identification
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The following identifiers for this format are recommended where appropriate.
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However, note that none have been registered officially, so this is only to
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be taken as a guideline. We use "Snappy framed" to distinguish between this
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format and raw Snappy data.
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File extension: .sz
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MIME type: application/x-snappy-framed
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HTTP Content-Encoding: x-snappy-framed
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3. Checksum format
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Some chunks have data protected by a checksum (the ones that do will say so
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explicitly). The checksums are always masked CRC-32Cs.
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A description of CRC-32C can be found in RFC 3720, section 12.1, with
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examples in section B.4.
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Checksums are not stored directly, but masked, as checksumming data and
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then its own checksum can be problematic. The masking is the same as used
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in Apache Hadoop: Rotate the checksum by 15 bits, then add the constant
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0xa282ead8 (using wraparound as normal for unsigned integers). This is
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equivalent to the following C code:
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uint32_t mask_checksum(uint32_t x) {
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return ((x >> 15) | (x << 17)) + 0xa282ead8;
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}
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Note that the masking is reversible.
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The checksum is always stored as a four bytes long integer, in little-endian.
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4. Chunk types
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The currently supported chunk types are described below. The list may
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be extended in the future.
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4.1. Stream identifier (chunk type 0xff)
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The stream identifier is always the first element in the stream.
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It is exactly six bytes long and contains "sNaPpY" in ASCII. This means that
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a valid Snappy framed stream always starts with the bytes
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0xff 0x06 0x00 0x00 0x73 0x4e 0x61 0x50 0x70 0x59
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The stream identifier chunk can come multiple times in the stream besides
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the first; if such a chunk shows up, it should simply be ignored, assuming
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it has the right length and contents. This allows for easy concatenation of
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compressed files without the need for re-framing.
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4.2. Compressed data (chunk type 0x00)
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Compressed data chunks contain a normal Snappy compressed bitstream;
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see the compressed format specification. The compressed data is preceded by
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the CRC-32C (see section 3) of the _uncompressed_ data.
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Note that the data portion of the chunk, i.e., the compressed contents,
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can be at most 16777211 bytes (2^24 - 1, minus the checksum).
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However, we place an additional restriction that the uncompressed data
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in a chunk must be no longer than 65536 bytes. This allows consumers to
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easily use small fixed-size buffers.
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4.3. Uncompressed data (chunk type 0x01)
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Uncompressed data chunks allow a compressor to send uncompressed,
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raw data; this is useful if, for instance, uncompressible or
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near-incompressible data is detected, and faster decompression is desired.
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As in the compressed chunks, the data is preceded by its own masked
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CRC-32C (see section 3).
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An uncompressed data chunk, like compressed data chunks, should contain
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no more than 65536 data bytes, so the maximum legal chunk length with the
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checksum is 65540.
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4.4. Padding (chunk type 0xfe)
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Padding chunks allow a compressor to increase the size of the data stream
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so that it complies with external demands, e.g. that the total number of
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bytes is a multiple of some value.
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All bytes of the padding chunk, except the chunk byte itself and the length,
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should be zero, but decompressors must not try to interpret or verify the
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padding data in any way.
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4.5. Reserved unskippable chunks (chunk types 0x02-0x7f)
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These are reserved for future expansion. A decoder that sees such a chunk
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should immediately return an error, as it must assume it cannot decode the
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stream correctly.
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Future versions of this specification may define meanings for these chunks.
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4.6. Reserved skippable chunks (chunk types 0x80-0xfd)
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These are also reserved for future expansion, but unlike the chunks
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described in 4.5, a decoder seeing these must skip them and continue
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decoding.
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Future versions of this specification may define meanings for these chunks.
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