TinyZZZ

TinyZZZ is a simple, standalone data compressor/decompressor which supports several popular data compression algorithms, including GZIP, ZSTD, LZMA (and maybe more in future). These algorithms are written in C language, unlike the official code implementation, this code mainly focuses on simplicity and easy to understand.

TinyZZZ currently supports:

• GZIP compress: compress a file into a ".gz" file
• ZSTD decompress: decompress a ".zst" file to a file
• LZMA decompress: decompress a ".lzma" file to a file
• LZMA compress: compress a file into a ".lzma" file
• LZMA compress: compress a file into a ".zip" container file (compress method=LZMA)

About GZIP

GZIP is an old lossless data compression algorithm which has excellent compatibility. The core compression algorithm of GZIP is Deflate. The file name suffix of compressed GZIP file is ".gz"

About ZSTD

ZSTD (Zstandard) is a new lossless data compression algorithm with high compression ratio and high decompression speed. The file name suffix of compressed ZSTD file is ".zstd"

About LZMA

LZMA is a lossless data compression algorithm with higher compression ratio than GZIP, BZIP, and ZSTD. Several archive container formats supports LZMA:

• ".lzma" is a very simple format to contain LZMA, which is legacy and gradually replaced by ".xz" format.
• ".7z" and ".xz" format, whose default compression method is LZMA.
• ".zip" format also supports LZMA, although the default compression method of ".zip" is Deflate.

　

　

Linux Build

On Linux, run following command to compile. The output Linux binary file is tinyZZZ

gcc src/*.c src/GZIP/*.c src/ZSTD/*.c src/LZMA/*.c -O2 -Wall -o tinyZZZ

　

　

Windows Build

If you installed MinGW in Windows, run following command to compile. The output executable file is tinyZZZ.exe

gcc src\*.c src\GZIP\*.c src\ZSTD\*.c src\LZMA\*.c -O2 -Wall -o tinyZZZ.exe

　

　

Usage

Run TinyZZZ to show usage:

└─$ ./tinyZZZ
|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|  Usage :                                                             |
|   1. decompress a GZIP file                                          |
|        (not yet supported!)                                          |
|   2. compress a file to GZIP file                                    |
|        tinyZZZ.exe -c --gzip <input_file> <output_file(.gz)>         |
|   3. decompress a ZSTD file                                          |
|        tinyZZZ.exe -d --zstd <input_file(.zst)> <output_file>        |
|   4. compress a file to ZSTD file                                    |
|        (not yet supported!)                                          |
|   5. decompress a LZMA file                                          |
|        tinyZZZ.exe -d --lzma <input_file(.lzma)> <output_file>       |
|   6. compress a file to LZMA file                                    |
|        tinyZZZ.exe -c --lzma <input_file> <output_file(.lzma)>       |
|   7. compress a file to LZMA and pack to a .zip container file       |
|        tinyZZZ.exe -c --lzma --zip <input_file> <output_file(.zip)>  |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------|

　

Example Usage

Example1: decompress the file example.txt.zst to example.txt use following command.

./tinyZZZ -d --zstd example.txt.zst example.txt

Example2: compress example.txt to example.txt.gz use following command. The outputting ".gz" file can be extracted by many other software, such as 7ZIP, WinRAR, etc.

./tinyZZZ -c --gzip example.txt example.txt.gz

Example3: compress example.txt to example.txt.lzma use following command.

./tinyZZZ -c --lzma example.txt example.txt.lzma

Example4: decompress example.txt.lzma to example.txt use following command.

./tinyZZZ -d --lzma example.txt.lzma example.txt

Example5: compress example.txt to example.zip use following command. The outputting ".zip" file can be extracted by many other software, such as 7ZIP, WinRAR, etc.

./tinyZZZ -c --lzma --zip example.txt example.zip

　

　

Appendix: How to decompress ".lzma" file

on Windows

On Windows, you can use the official 7ZIP/LZMA software to decompress the generated ".lzma" file. To get it, download the "LZMA SDK", extract it. In the "bin" directory, you can see "lzma.exe".

To decompress a ".lzma" file, run command as format:

.\lzma.exe d [input_lzma_file] [output_file]

on Linux

On Linux, you can decompress ".lzma" file using the official "p7zip" software. You should firstly install it:

apt-get install p7zip

Then use following command to decompress the ".lzma" file.

7z x [input_lzma_file]

It may report a error : "ERROR: There are some data after the end of the payload data" . Just ignore it, because there may be a extra "0x00" at the end of ".lzma" file. It won't affect the normal data decompression.

　

　

Related Links

• GZIP specification: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1951

• Deflate algorithm specification: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1952

• ZSTD specification: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8878

• ZSTD official code: https://github.com/facebook/zstd

• ZSTD official lightweight decompressor: https://github.com/facebook/zstd/tree/dev/doc/educational_decoder

• LZMA official code and the 7ZIP software: https://www.7-zip.org/sdk.html

• another LZMA official code and the XZ software: https://tukaani.org/xz/

• An introduction to LZMA algorithm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lempel%E2%80%93Ziv%E2%80%93Markov_chain_algorithm

• An FPGA-based hardware GZIP data compressor: https://github.com/WangXuan95/FPGA-Gzip-compressor

• An FPGA-based hardware LZMA data compressor: https://github.com/WangXuan95/FPGA-LZMA-compressor