TiP - Tiny Packer For Very Small Buffers

+ Pack buffers from 2 bytes size for easy package framing❗
++ zeroes elimination and adaptable compression in one step

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Table of Contents

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• 1. Project Status
• 2. About The Project
• 3. TiP Components
• 4. Usage
• 5. Roadmap
• 6. Contributing
• 7. License
• 8. Contact
• 9. Acknowledgments

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1. About The Project

• Usual compressors cannot succeed on very small buffers (2...100 bytes), because they add translation information to the data:

  echo "try this" | gzip -c | wc -c
      29
  echo "Compress this normal line with 42 letters." | gzip -c | wc -c
      63
  echo "Compress this text and see how long it is afterwards. Today is a beautiful day. This example consists of 117 letters." | gzip -c | wc -c
     117

• TiP is an adaptable very-short-buffer packer, suitable for embedded devices. Like COBS it removes all zeroes from the data, but additionally tries data compression.

• The TiP worst-case overhead is 1 byte per each starting 7 bytes (+14%) or 1 byte for 3 uncompressable data bytes (+33%), but the expected average packed size is about 50% or less of the unpacked data. _{(For comparism: COBS adds 1 byte overhead per each starting 255 bytes, but does not compress at all.)}

• Like TCOBS, TiP can already compress 2 bytes into 1 byte but is expected to do better on arbitrary data (similar to samples) with a bit more computing effort.

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2. Project Status

--> Experimental state! 
+   You can try it out!

quick start

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3. TiP Components

• C-Code usable on embedded devices inside src folder containing:
  • idTable.c - a generated data specific translation table
  • ti_pack.c and ti_unpack.c - separately or together compilable
• PC apps:
  • ti_generate - tiny generator to create a suitable idTable.c file
  • ti_pack - tiny pack using the pack C code mainly for tests
  • ti_unpack - tiny unpack using the unpack C code mainly for tests

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4. Usage

See the Tip User Manual.

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5. Roadmap

• Create tipTable.h Generator ti_generate.
• Create pack.c and unpack.c and test.
• Write Tip User Manual.
• Selectable unreplacable converter bit count (6 or 7).
• Optimization for unreplacables.
• Improve ti_generate to optimize pattern selection.
• Extend ti_generate to find best settings automatically.
• Build tip executable, which accepts stdin and writes to stdout.
• Write extensive tests.
• Write fuzzy tests.
• Remove 65528 bytes limitation.
• Compare automatic with:
  • tcobs
  • smaz
  • shoco
  • zip
• Improve TiP pack code for speed and less RAM usage.
• Write TiP unpack code in Go.

See the open issues for a full list of proposed features (and known issues).

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6. Contributing

Contributions are what make the open source community such an amazing place to learn, inspire, and create. Any contributions you make are greatly appreciated.

If you have a suggestion that would make this better, please fork the repo and create a pull request. You can also simply open an issue with the tag "enhancement". Don't forget to give the project a star! Thanks again!

1. Fork the Project
2. Create your Feature Branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit your Changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
4. Push to the Branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

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7. License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE.txt for more information.

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8. Contact

Thomas Höhenleitner - th@seerose.net

Project Link: https://github.com/rokath/tip

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9. Acknowledgments

• Consistent Overhead Byte Stuffing
• Smaz

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