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diff --git a/Documentation/lzo.txt b/Documentation/lzo.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..ea45dd3901e3 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/lzo.txt @@ -0,0 +1,164 @@ + +LZO stream format as understood by Linux's LZO decompressor +=========================================================== + +Introduction + + This is not a specification. No specification seems to be publicly available + for the LZO stream format. This document describes what input format the LZO + decompressor as implemented in the Linux kernel understands. The file subject + of this analysis is lib/lzo/lzo1x_decompress_safe.c. No analysis was made on + the compressor nor on any other implementations though it seems likely that + the format matches the standard one. The purpose of this document is to + better understand what the code does in order to propose more efficient fixes + for future bug reports. + +Description + + The stream is composed of a series of instructions, operands, and data. The + instructions consist in a few bits representing an opcode, and bits forming + the operands for the instruction, whose size and position depend on the + opcode and on the number of literals copied by previous instruction. The + operands are used to indicate : + + - a distance when copying data from the dictionary (past output buffer) + - a length (number of bytes to copy from dictionary) + - the number of literals to copy, which is retained in variable "state" + as a piece of information for next instructions. + + Optionally depending on the opcode and operands, extra data may follow. These + extra data can be a complement for the operand (eg: a length or a distance + encoded on larger values), or a literal to be copied to the output buffer. + + The first byte of the block follows a different encoding from other bytes, it + seems to be optimized for literal use only, since there is no dictionary yet + prior to that byte. + + Lengths are always encoded on a variable size starting with a small number + of bits in the operand. If the number of bits isn't enough to represent the + length, up to 255 may be added in increments by consuming more bytes with a + rate of at most 255 per extra byte (thus the compression ratio cannot exceed + around 255:1). The variable length encoding using #bits is always the same : + + length = byte & ((1 << #bits) - 1) + if (!length) { + length = ((1 << #bits) - 1) + length += 255*(number of zero bytes) + length += first-non-zero-byte + } + length += constant (generally 2 or 3) + + For references to the dictionary, distances are relative to the output + pointer. Distances are encoded using very few bits belonging to certain + ranges, resulting in multiple copy instructions using different encodings. + Certain encodings involve one extra byte, others involve two extra bytes + forming a little-endian 16-bit quantity (marked LE16 below). + + After any instruction except the large literal copy, 0, 1, 2 or 3 literals + are copied before starting the next instruction. The number of literals that + were copied may change the meaning and behaviour of the next instruction. In + practice, only one instruction needs to know whether 0, less than 4, or more + literals were copied. This is the information stored in the <state> variable + in this implementation. This number of immediate literals to be copied is + generally encoded in the last two bits of the instruction but may also be + taken from the last two bits of an extra operand (eg: distance). + + End of stream is declared when a block copy of distance 0 is seen. Only one + instruction may encode this distance (0001HLLL), it takes one LE16 operand + for the distance, thus requiring 3 bytes. + + IMPORTANT NOTE : in the code some length checks are missing because certain + instructions are called under the assumption that a certain number of bytes + follow because it has already been garanteed before parsing the instructions. + They just have to "refill" this credit if they consume extra bytes. This is + an implementation design choice independant on the algorithm or encoding. + +Byte sequences + + First byte encoding : + + 0..17 : follow regular instruction encoding, see below. It is worth + noting that codes 16 and 17 will represent a block copy from + the dictionary which is empty, and that they will always be + invalid at this place. + + 18..21 : copy 0..3 literals + state = (byte - 17) = 0..3 [ copy <state> literals ] + skip byte + + 22..255 : copy literal string + length = (byte - 17) = 4..238 + state = 4 [ don't copy extra literals ] + skip byte + + Instruction encoding : + + 0 0 0 0 X X X X (0..15) + Depends on the number of literals copied by the last instruction. + If last instruction did not copy any literal (state == 0), this + encoding will be a copy of 4 or more literal, and must be interpreted + like this : + + 0 0 0 0 L L L L (0..15) : copy long literal string + length = 3 + (L ?: 15 + (zero_bytes * 255) + non_zero_byte) + state = 4 (no extra literals are copied) + + If last instruction used to copy between 1 to 3 literals (encoded in + the instruction's opcode or distance), the instruction is a copy of a + 2-byte block from the dictionary within a 1kB distance. It is worth + noting that this instruction provides little savings since it uses 2 + bytes to encode a copy of 2 other bytes but it encodes the number of + following literals for free. It must be interpreted like this : + + 0 0 0 0 D D S S (0..15) : copy 2 bytes from <= 1kB distance + length = 2 + state = S (copy S literals after this block) + Always followed by exactly one byte : H H H H H H H H + distance = (H << 2) + D + 1 + + If last instruction used to copy 4 or more literals (as detected by + state == 4), the instruction becomes a copy of a 3-byte block from the + dictionary from a 2..3kB distance, and must be interpreted like this : + + 0 0 0 0 D D S S (0..15) : copy 3 bytes from 2..3 kB distance + length = 3 + state = S (copy S literals after this block) + Always followed by exactly one byte : H H H H H H H H + distance = (H << 2) + D + 2049 + + 0 0 0 1 H L L L (16..31) + Copy of a block within 16..48kB distance (preferably less than 10B) + length = 2 + (L ?: 7 + (zero_bytes * 255) + non_zero_byte) + Always followed by exactly one LE16 : D D D D D D D D : D D D D D D S S + distance = 16384 + (H << 14) + D + state = S (copy S literals after this block) + End of stream is reached if distance == 16384 + + 0 0 1 L L L L L (32..63) + Copy of small block within 16kB distance (preferably less than 34B) + length = 2 + (L ?: 31 + (zero_bytes * 255) + non_zero_byte) + Always followed by exactly one LE16 : D D D D D D D D : D D D D D D S S + distance = D + 1 + state = S (copy S literals after this block) + + 0 1 L D D D S S (64..127) + Copy 3-4 bytes from block within 2kB distance + state = S (copy S literals after this block) + length = 3 + L + Always followed by exactly one byte : H H H H H H H H + distance = (H << 3) + D + 1 + + 1 L L D D D S S (128..255) + Copy 5-8 bytes from block within 2kB distance + state = S (copy S literals after this block) + length = 5 + L + Always followed by exactly one byte : H H H H H H H H + distance = (H << 3) + D + 1 + +Authors + + This document was written by Willy Tarreau <w@1wt.eu> on 2014/07/19 during an + analysis of the decompression code available in Linux 3.16-rc5. The code is + tricky, it is possible that this document contains mistakes or that a few + corner cases were overlooked. In any case, please report any doubt, fix, or + proposed updates to the author(s) so that the document can be updated. |