# TinyZZZ

**Repository Path**: wangxuan95/TinyZZZ

## Basic Information

- **Project Name**: TinyZZZ
- **Description**: TinyZZZ includes GZIP, LZ4, ZSTD, LZMA compression algorithms written in C language, unlike the official code, this code mainly focuses on simplicity and easy to understand.
- **Primary Language**: C
- **License**: MIT
- **Default Branch**: main
- **Homepage**: https://github.com/WangXuan95/TinyZZZ
- **GVP Project**: No

## Statistics

- **Stars**: 1
- **Forks**: 1
- **Created**: 2025-04-26
- **Last Updated**: 2025-08-01

## Categories & Tags

**Categories**: Uncategorized

**Tags**: compression, lz4, zstd, lzma, GZip

## README

 ![language](https://img.shields.io/badge/language-C-green.svg) ![build](https://img.shields.io/badge/build-Windows-blue.svg) ![build](https://img.shields.io/badge/build-linux-FF1010.svg)

TinyZZZ
===========================

TinyZZZ is a simple, standalone data compressor/decompressor which supports several popular data compression algorithms, including [GZIP](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1952), [LZ4](https://github.com/lz4/lz4), [ZSTD](https://github.com/facebook/zstd), [LZMA](https://www.7-zip.org/sdk.html) and [LPAQ8](https://mattmahoney.net/dc/#lpaq). 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 following compression algorithms:

|                       format                       | file suffix |             compress              |            decompress             |
| :------------------------------------------------: | :---------: | :-------------------------------: | :-------------------------------: |
| **[GZIP](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1952)** |     .gz     |  [510 lines of C](./src/gzipC.c)  |       :x: not yet supported       |
|       **[LZ4](https://github.com/lz4/lz4)**        |    .lz4     |  [170 lines of C](./src/lz4C.c)   |  [190 lines of C](./src/lz4D.c)   |
|    **[ZSTD](https://github.com/facebook/zstd)**    |    .zst     |       :x: not yet supported       |  [760 lines of C](./src/zstdD.c)  |
|     **[LZMA](https://www.7-zip.org/sdk.html)**     |    .lzma    |  [780 lines of C](./src/lzmaC.c)  |  [480 lines of C](./src/lzmaD.c)  |
|   **[LPAQ8](https://mattmahoney.net/dc/#lpaq)**    |   .lpaq8    | [860 lines of C](./src/lpaq8CD.c) | [860 lines of C](./src/lpaq8CD.c) |

Explanation:

|                         format                          | year | Explanation                                                  |
| :-----------------------------------------------------: | :--: | :----------------------------------------------------------- |
|   **[GZIP](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1952)**    | 1989 | GZIP is an old, famous lossless data compression algorithm which has excellent compatibility. The core compression algorithm of GZIP is [Deflate](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1951). The file name suffix of compressed GZIP file is ".gz" |
|          **[LZ4](https://github.com/lz4/lz4)**          | 2014 | LZ4 is a new, lightweight lossless data compression algorithm with very high decompression speed. The file name suffix of compressed LZ4 file is ".lz4" |
|      **[ZSTD](https://github.com/facebook/zstd)**       | 2016 | 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" |
|       **[LZMA](https://www.7-zip.org/sdk.html)**        | 2000 | LZMA is a lossless data compression algorithm with higher compression ratio than LZ4, GZIP, BZIP, and ZSTD. Several archive container formats supports LZMA:  (1) ".lzma" is a very simple format to contain LZMA, which is legacy and gradually replaced by ".xz" format. (2) ".7z" and ".xz" format, whose default compression method is LZMA. |
|      **[LPAQ8](https://mattmahoney.net/dc/#lpaq)**      | 2008 | LPAQ8 is a slow, high-compression-ratio lossless data compression algorithm by Alexander Rhatushnyak and Matt Mahoney. The basic principle of LPAQ8 is context-mixing instead of LZ77. You can download the official implement of LPAQ8 from https://mattmahoney.net/dc/lpaq8.zip . I've put [the official executable file lpaq8.exe](./third-party/lpaq8_official.exe) in this repo for comparison. |
| **[ZIP](https://docs.fileformat.com/compression/zip/)** | 1989 | ZIP is not actually a data compression algorithm, but a container format that supports file packaging and compressing by many compression algorithms. This code supports compress a file to ZIP container by deflate algorithm or LZMA algorithm. |

　

　

## Linux Build

On Linux, run following command to compile. The output Linux binary file is [tinyZZZ](./tinyZZZ) 

Note: The code complies with the C99 standard.

```bash
gcc src/*.c -O2 -std=c99 -Wall -o tinyZZZ
```

　

　

## Windows Build (MinGW)

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

```powershell
gcc src\*.c -O2 -std=c99 -Wall -o tinyZZZ.exe
```

　

　

## Windows Build (MSVC)

If you added MSVC compiler (cl.exe) to environment, run following command to compile. The output executable file is [tinyZZZ.exe](./tinyZZZ.exe)

```powershell
cl src\*.c /Ox /FetinyZZZ.exe
```

　

　

## Usage

Run TinyZZZ to show usage:

```
└─$ ./tinyZZZ
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|  Usage :                                                                                  |
|   - decompress a GZIP file       :  *** not yet supported! ***                            |
|   - compress a file to GZIP file :  tinyZZZ -c --gzip <input_file> <output_file(.gz)>     |
|   - decompress a LZ4 file        :  tinyZZZ -d --lz4  <input_file(.lz4)> <output_file>    |
|   - compress a file to LZ4 file  :  tinyZZZ -c --lz4  <input_file> <output_file(.lz4)>    |
|   - decompress a ZSTD file       :  tinyZZZ -d --zstd <input_file(.zst)> <output_file>    |
|   - compress a file to ZSTD file :  *** not yet supported! ***                            |
|   - decompress a LZMA file       :  tinyZZZ -d --lzma <input_file(.lzma)> <output_file>   |
|   - compress a file to LZMA file :  tinyZZZ -c --lzma <input_file> <output_file(.lzma)>   |
|   - decompress a LPAQ8 file      :  tinyZZZ -d --lpaq8 <input_file(.lpaq8)> <output_file> |
|   - compress a file to LPAQ8 file:  tinyZZZ -c --lpaq8 <input_file> <output_file(.lpaq8)> |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|  Usage (compress to ZIP container) :                                                      |
|   - use Deflate method : tinyZZZ -c --gzip --zip <input_file> <output_file(.zip)>         |
|   - use LZMA method    : tinyZZZ -c --lzma --zip <input_file> <output_file(.zip)>         |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
```

　

### Example Usage

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

```bash
./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](https://www.7-zip.org), [WinRAR](https://www.rarlab.com/), etc.

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

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

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

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

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

**Example5**: compress `example.txt` to `example.txt.lz4` use following command.

```bash
./tinyZZZ -c --lz4 example.txt example.txt.lz4
```

**Example6**: decompress `example.txt.lz4` to `example.txt` use following command.

```bash
./tinyZZZ -d --lz4 example.txt.lz4 example.txt
```

**Example7**: compress `example.txt` to `example.zip` use following command (method=deflate). The outputting ".zip" file can be extracted by many other software, such as [7ZIP](https://www.7-zip.org), [WinRAR](https://www.rarlab.com/), etc.

```bash
./tinyZZZ -c --gzip --zip example.txt example.zip
```

**Example8**: compress `example.txt` to `example.zip` use following command (method=LZMA). The outputting ".zip" file can be extracted by many other software, such as [7ZIP](https://www.7-zip.org), [WinRAR](https://www.rarlab.com/), etc.

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

　

　

## <span id="dec_en">Appendix: How to decompress ".lzma" file</span>

#### on Windows

On Windows, you can use the [official 7ZIP/LZMA software](https://www.7-zip.org/sdk.html) 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:

```powershell
.\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:

```bash
apt-get install p7zip
```

Then use following command to decompress the ".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.

```bash
7z x [input_lzma_file]
```

　

　

## Related Links

- GZIP specification: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1951
- Deflate algorithm specification: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1952

- LZ4 official code: https://github.com/lz4/lz4

- LZ4 specification: https://github.com/lz4/lz4/blob/dev/doc/lz4_Frame_format.md , https://github.com/lz4/lz4/blob/dev/doc/lz4_Block_format.md

- 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

- LPAQ8 official code : https://mattmahoney.net/dc/#lpaq

- principle of context-mixing and PAQ : https://mattmahoney.net/dc/dce.html#Section_43