.\" dictzip.1 -- .\" Created: Sun Jun 22 16:33:39 1997 by faith@acm.org .\" Copyright 1997, 1998 Rickard E. Faith (faith@acm.org) .\" Copyright 2002-2008 Aleksey Cheusov (vle@gmx.net) .\" .\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this .\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are .\" preserved on all copies. .\" .\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this .\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the .\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a .\" permission notice identical to this one .\" .\" Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this .\" manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date. The author(s) assume no .\" responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from .\" the use of the information contained herein. The author(s) may not .\" have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual, .\" which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working .\" professionally. .\" .\" Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by .\" the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work. .\" .TH DICTZIP 1 "22 Jun 1997" "" "" .SH "NAME" dictzip, dictunzip \- compress (or expand) files, allowing random access .SH "SYNOPSIS" .nf .BI "dictzip [" options "] " name .br .BI "dictunzip [" options "] " name .fi .SH "DESCRIPTION" .B dictzip compresses files using the .BR gzip (1) algorithm (LZ77) in a manner which is completely compatible with the .BR gzip file format. An extension to the .B gzip file format (Extra Field, described in 2.3.1.1 of RFC 1952) allows extra data to be stored in the header of a compressed file. Programs like .B gzip and .B zcat will ignore this extra data. However, .BR dictd (8), the DICT protocol dictionary server will make use of this data to perform pseudo-random access on the file. Files in the .B dictzip format should end in ".dz" so that they may be distinguished from common .B gzip files that do not contain the special header information. .P From RFC 1952, the extra field is specified as follows: .sp .RS If the FLG.FEXTRA bit is set, an "extra field" is present in the header, with total length XLEN bytes. It consists of a series of subfields, each of the form: .sp .nf +---+---+---+---+==================================+ |SI1|SI2| LEN |... LEN bytes of subfield data ...| +---+---+---+---+==================================+ .fi .sp SI1 and SI2 provide a subfield ID, typically two ASCII letters with some mnemonic value. Jean-Loup Gailly is maintaining a registry of subfield IDs; please send him any subfield ID you wish to use. Subfield IDs with SI2 = 0 are reserved for future use. .P LEN gives the length of the subfield data, excluding the 4 initial bytes. .RE .sp The .B dictzip program uses 'R' for SI1, and 'A' for SI2 (i.e., "Random Access"). After the LEN field, the data is arranged as follows: .sp .nf +---+---+---+---+---+---+===============================+ | VER | CHLEN | CHCNT | ... CHCNT words of data ... | +---+---+---+---+---+---+===============================+ .fi .sp As per RFC 1952, all data is stored least-significant byte first. For VER 1 of the data, all values are 16-bits long (2 bytes), and are unsigned integers. .P XLEN (which is specified earlier in the header) is a two byte integer, so the extra field can be 0xffff bytes long, 2 bytes of which are used for the subfield ID (SI1 and SI1), and 2 bytes of which are used for the subfield length (LEN). This leaves 0xfffb bytes (0x7ffd 2-byte entries or 0x3ffe 4-byte entries). Given that the zip output buffer must be 10% + 12 bytes larger than the input buffer, we can store 58969 bytes per entry, or about 1.8GB if the 2-byte entries are used. If this becomes a limiting factor, another format version can be selected and defined for 4-byte entries. .P For compression, the file is divided up into "chunks" of data, each chunk is less than 64kB, and can be compressed into an area that is also less than 64kB long (taking incompressible data into account -- usually the data is compressed into a block that is much smaller than the original). The CHLEN field specifies the length of a "chunk" of data. The CHCNT field specifies how many chunks are preset, and the CHCNT words of data specifies how long each chunk is after compression (i.e., in the current compressed file). .P To perform random access on the data, the offset and length of the data are provided to library routines. These routines determine the chunk in which the desired data begins, and decompresses that chunk. Consecutive chunks are decompressed as necessary. .SH "TRADEOFFS" .TP .B Speed True random file access is not realized, since any access, even for a single byte, requires that a 64kB chunk be read and decompressed. This is slower than accessing a flat text file, but is much, much faster than performing serial access on a fully compressed file. .TP .B Space For the textual dictionary databases we are working with, the use of 64kB chunks and maximal LZ77 compression realizes a file which is only about 4% larger than the same file compressed all at once. .SH "OPTIONS" .TP .BR \-d " or " \-\-decompress Decompress. This is the default if the executable is called .BR dictunzip . .TP .BR \-c " or " \-\-stdout Write output on standard output; keep original files unchanged. This is only available when decompressing (because parts of the header must be updated after a write when compressing). .TP .BR \-f " or " \-\-force Force compression or decompression even if the output file already exists. .TP .BR \-h " or " \-\-help Display help. .TP .BR \-k " or " \-\-keep Do not delete the original file. .TP .BR \-l " or " \-\-list For each compressed file, list the following fields: type: dzip, gzip, or text (includes files in unknown formats) crc: CRC checksum date and time: from header chunks: number of chunks in file size: size of each uncompressed chunk compr.: compressed size uncompr.: uncompressed size ratio: compression ratio (0.0% if unknown) name: name of uncompressed file Unlike .BR gzip , the compression method is not detected. .TP .BR \-L " or " \-\-license Display the .B dictzip license and quit. .TP .BR \-t " or " \-\-test Check the compressed file integrity. This option is not implemented. Instead, it will list the header information. .TP .BR \-n " or " \-\-no-name Don't save the original filename and timestamp. .TP .BR \-v " or " \-\-verbose Verbose. Display extra information during compression. .TP .BR \-V " or " \-\-version Version. Display the version number and compilation options then quit. .TP .BI \-s " start\fR or " \-\-start " start" Specify the offer to start decompression, using decimal numbers. The default is at the beginning of the file. .TP .BI \-e " size\fR or " \-\-size " size" Specify the size of the portion of the file to decompress, using decimal numbers. The default is the whole file. .TP .BI \-S " start\fR or " \-\-Start " start" Specify the offer to start decompression, using base64 numbers. The default is at the beginning of the file. .TP .BI \-E " size\fR or " \-\-Size " start" Specify the size of the portion of the file to decompress, using base64 numbers. The default is the whole file. .TP .BI \-p " prefilter\fR or " \-\-pre " prefilter" Specify a shell command to execute as a filter before compression or decompression of a chunk. The pre- and post-compression filters can be used to provide additional compression or output formatting. The filters may not increase the buffer size significantly. The pre- and post-compression filters were designed to provide the most general interface possible. .TP .BI \-P " postfilter\fR or " \-\-post " postfilter" Specify a shell command to execute as a filter after compression or decompression. .SH CREDITS .B dictzip was written by Rik Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu) and is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. If you need to distribute under other terms, write to the author. .P The main libraries used by this programs (zlib, regex, libmaa) are distributed under different terms, so you may be able to use the libraries for applications which are incompatible with the GPL -- please see the copyright notices and license information that come with the libraries for more information, and consult with your attorney to resolve these issues. .SH "SEE ALSO" .BR dict (1), .BR dictd (8), .BR gzip (1), .BR gunzip (1), .BR zcat (1)