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.TH bzip2 1 | |
.SH NAME | |
bzip2, bunzip2 \- a block-sorting file compressor, v1.0.8 | |
.br | |
bzcat \- decompresses files to stdout | |
.br | |
bzip2recover \- recovers data from damaged bzip2 files | |
.SH SYNOPSIS | |
.ll +8 | |
.B bzip2 | |
.RB [ " \-cdfkqstvzVL123456789 " ] | |
[ | |
.I "filenames \&..." | |
] | |
.ll -8 | |
.br | |
.B bunzip2 | |
.RB [ " \-fkvsVL " ] | |
[ | |
.I "filenames \&..." | |
] | |
.br | |
.B bzcat | |
.RB [ " \-s " ] | |
[ | |
.I "filenames \&..." | |
] | |
.br | |
.B bzip2recover | |
.I "filename" | |
.SH DESCRIPTION | |
.I bzip2 | |
compresses files using the Burrows-Wheeler block sorting | |
text compression algorithm, and Huffman coding. Compression is | |
generally considerably better than that achieved by more conventional | |
LZ77/LZ78-based compressors, and approaches the performance of the PPM | |
family of statistical compressors. | |
The command-line options are deliberately very similar to | |
those of | |
.I GNU gzip, | |
but they are not identical. | |
.I bzip2 | |
expects a list of file names to accompany the | |
command-line flags. Each file is replaced by a compressed version of | |
itself, with the name "original_name.bz2". | |
Each compressed file | |
has the same modification date, permissions, and, when possible, | |
ownership as the corresponding original, so that these properties can | |
be correctly restored at decompression time. File name handling is | |
naive in the sense that there is no mechanism for preserving original | |
file names, permissions, ownerships or dates in filesystems which lack | |
these concepts, or have serious file name length restrictions, such as | |
MS-DOS. | |
.I bzip2 | |
and | |
.I bunzip2 | |
will by default not overwrite existing | |
files. If you want this to happen, specify the \-f flag. | |
If no file names are specified, | |
.I bzip2 | |
compresses from standard | |
input to standard output. In this case, | |
.I bzip2 | |
will decline to | |
write compressed output to a terminal, as this would be entirely | |
incomprehensible and therefore pointless. | |
.I bunzip2 | |
(or | |
.I bzip2 \-d) | |
decompresses all | |
specified files. Files which were not created by | |
.I bzip2 | |
will be detected and ignored, and a warning issued. | |
.I bzip2 | |
attempts to guess the filename for the decompressed file | |
from that of the compressed file as follows: | |
filename.bz2 becomes filename | |
filename.bz becomes filename | |
filename.tbz2 becomes filename.tar | |
filename.tbz becomes filename.tar | |
anyothername becomes anyothername.out | |
If the file does not end in one of the recognised endings, | |
.I .bz2, | |
.I .bz, | |
.I .tbz2 | |
or | |
.I .tbz, | |
.I bzip2 | |
complains that it cannot | |
guess the name of the original file, and uses the original name | |
with | |
.I .out | |
appended. | |
As with compression, supplying no | |
filenames causes decompression from | |
standard input to standard output. | |
.I bunzip2 | |
will correctly decompress a file which is the | |
concatenation of two or more compressed files. The result is the | |
concatenation of the corresponding uncompressed files. Integrity | |
testing (\-t) | |
of concatenated | |
compressed files is also supported. | |
You can also compress or decompress files to the standard output by | |
giving the \-c flag. Multiple files may be compressed and | |
decompressed like this. The resulting outputs are fed sequentially to | |
stdout. Compression of multiple files | |
in this manner generates a stream | |
containing multiple compressed file representations. Such a stream | |
can be decompressed correctly only by | |
.I bzip2 | |
version 0.9.0 or | |
later. Earlier versions of | |
.I bzip2 | |
will stop after decompressing | |
the first file in the stream. | |
.I bzcat | |
(or | |
.I bzip2 -dc) | |
decompresses all specified files to | |
the standard output. | |
.I bzip2 | |
will read arguments from the environment variables | |
.I BZIP2 | |
and | |
.I BZIP, | |
in that order, and will process them | |
before any arguments read from the command line. This gives a | |
convenient way to supply default arguments. | |
Compression is always performed, even if the compressed | |
file is slightly | |
larger than the original. Files of less than about one hundred bytes | |
tend to get larger, since the compression mechanism has a constant | |
overhead in the region of 50 bytes. Random data (including the output | |
of most file compressors) is coded at about 8.05 bits per byte, giving | |
an expansion of around 0.5%. | |
As a self-check for your protection, | |
.I | |
bzip2 | |
uses 32-bit CRCs to | |
make sure that the decompressed version of a file is identical to the | |
original. This guards against corruption of the compressed data, and | |
against undetected bugs in | |
.I bzip2 | |
(hopefully very unlikely). The | |
chances of data corruption going undetected is microscopic, about one | |
chance in four billion for each file processed. Be aware, though, that | |
the check occurs upon decompression, so it can only tell you that | |
something is wrong. It can't help you | |
recover the original uncompressed | |
data. You can use | |
.I bzip2recover | |
to try to recover data from | |
damaged files. | |
Return values: 0 for a normal exit, 1 for environmental problems (file | |
not found, invalid flags, I/O errors, &c), 2 to indicate a corrupt | |
compressed file, 3 for an internal consistency error (eg, bug) which | |
caused | |
.I bzip2 | |
to panic. | |
.SH OPTIONS | |
.TP | |
.B \-c --stdout | |
Compress or decompress to standard output. | |
.TP | |
.B \-d --decompress | |
Force decompression. | |
.I bzip2, | |
.I bunzip2 | |
and | |
.I bzcat | |
are | |
really the same program, and the decision about what actions to take is | |
done on the basis of which name is used. This flag overrides that | |
mechanism, and forces | |
.I bzip2 | |
to decompress. | |
.TP | |
.B \-z --compress | |
The complement to \-d: forces compression, regardless of the | |
invocation name. | |
.TP | |
.B \-t --test | |
Check integrity of the specified file(s), but don't decompress them. | |
This really performs a trial decompression and throws away the result. | |
.TP | |
.B \-f --force | |
Force overwrite of output files. Normally, | |
.I bzip2 | |
will not overwrite | |
existing output files. Also forces | |
.I bzip2 | |
to break hard links | |
to files, which it otherwise wouldn't do. | |
bzip2 normally declines to decompress files which don't have the | |
correct magic header bytes. If forced (-f), however, it will pass | |
such files through unmodified. This is how GNU gzip behaves. | |
.TP | |
.B \-k --keep | |
Keep (don't delete) input files during compression | |
or decompression. | |
.TP | |
.B \-s --small | |
Reduce memory usage, for compression, decompression and testing. Files | |
are decompressed and tested using a modified algorithm which only | |
requires 2.5 bytes per block byte. This means any file can be | |
decompressed in 2300k of memory, albeit at about half the normal speed. | |
During compression, \-s selects a block size of 200k, which limits | |
memory use to around the same figure, at the expense of your compression | |
ratio. In short, if your machine is low on memory (8 megabytes or | |
less), use \-s for everything. See MEMORY MANAGEMENT below. | |
.TP | |
.B \-q --quiet | |
Suppress non-essential warning messages. Messages pertaining to | |
I/O errors and other critical events will not be suppressed. | |
.TP | |
.B \-v --verbose | |
Verbose mode -- show the compression ratio for each file processed. | |
Further \-v's increase the verbosity level, spewing out lots of | |
information which is primarily of interest for diagnostic purposes. | |
.TP | |
.B \-L --license -V --version | |
Display the software version, license terms and conditions. | |
.TP | |
.B \-1 (or \-\-fast) to \-9 (or \-\-best) | |
Set the block size to 100 k, 200 k .. 900 k when compressing. Has no | |
effect when decompressing. See MEMORY MANAGEMENT below. | |
The \-\-fast and \-\-best aliases are primarily for GNU gzip | |
compatibility. In particular, \-\-fast doesn't make things | |
significantly faster. | |
And \-\-best merely selects the default behaviour. | |
.TP | |
.B \-- | |
Treats all subsequent arguments as file names, even if they start | |
with a dash. This is so you can handle files with names beginning | |
with a dash, for example: bzip2 \-- \-myfilename. | |
.TP | |
.B \--repetitive-fast --repetitive-best | |
These flags are redundant in versions 0.9.5 and above. They provided | |
some coarse control over the behaviour of the sorting algorithm in | |
earlier versions, which was sometimes useful. 0.9.5 and above have an | |
improved algorithm which renders these flags irrelevant. | |
.SH MEMORY MANAGEMENT | |
.I bzip2 | |
compresses large files in blocks. The block size affects | |
both the compression ratio achieved, and the amount of memory needed for | |
compression and decompression. The flags \-1 through \-9 | |
specify the block size to be 100,000 bytes through 900,000 bytes (the | |
default) respectively. At decompression time, the block size used for | |
compression is read from the header of the compressed file, and | |
.I bunzip2 | |
then allocates itself just enough memory to decompress | |
the file. Since block sizes are stored in compressed files, it follows | |
that the flags \-1 to \-9 are irrelevant to and so ignored | |
during decompression. | |
Compression and decompression requirements, | |
in bytes, can be estimated as: | |
Compression: 400k + ( 8 x block size ) | |
Decompression: 100k + ( 4 x block size ), or | |
100k + ( 2.5 x block size ) | |
Larger block sizes give rapidly diminishing marginal returns. Most of | |
the compression comes from the first two or three hundred k of block | |
size, a fact worth bearing in mind when using | |
.I bzip2 | |
on small machines. | |
It is also important to appreciate that the decompression memory | |
requirement is set at compression time by the choice of block size. | |
For files compressed with the default 900k block size, | |
.I bunzip2 | |
will require about 3700 kbytes to decompress. To support decompression | |
of any file on a 4 megabyte machine, | |
.I bunzip2 | |
has an option to | |
decompress using approximately half this amount of memory, about 2300 | |
kbytes. Decompression speed is also halved, so you should use this | |
option only where necessary. The relevant flag is -s. | |
In general, try and use the largest block size memory constraints allow, | |
since that maximises the compression achieved. Compression and | |
decompression speed are virtually unaffected by block size. | |
Another significant point applies to files which fit in a single block | |
-- that means most files you'd encounter using a large block size. The | |
amount of real memory touched is proportional to the size of the file, | |
since the file is smaller than a block. For example, compressing a file | |
20,000 bytes long with the flag -9 will cause the compressor to | |
allocate around 7600k of memory, but only touch 400k + 20000 * 8 = 560 | |
kbytes of it. Similarly, the decompressor will allocate 3700k but only | |
touch 100k + 20000 * 4 = 180 kbytes. | |
Here is a table which summarises the maximum memory usage for different | |
block sizes. Also recorded is the total compressed size for 14 files of | |
the Calgary Text Compression Corpus totalling 3,141,622 bytes. This | |
column gives some feel for how compression varies with block size. | |
These figures tend to understate the advantage of larger block sizes for | |
larger files, since the Corpus is dominated by smaller files. | |
Compress Decompress Decompress Corpus | |
Flag usage usage -s usage Size | |
-1 1200k 500k 350k 914704 | |
-2 2000k 900k 600k 877703 | |
-3 2800k 1300k 850k 860338 | |
-4 3600k 1700k 1100k 846899 | |
-5 4400k 2100k 1350k 845160 | |
-6 5200k 2500k 1600k 838626 | |
-7 6100k 2900k 1850k 834096 | |
-8 6800k 3300k 2100k 828642 | |
-9 7600k 3700k 2350k 828642 | |
.SH RECOVERING DATA FROM DAMAGED FILES | |
.I bzip2 | |
compresses files in blocks, usually 900kbytes long. Each | |
block is handled independently. If a media or transmission error causes | |
a multi-block .bz2 | |
file to become damaged, it may be possible to | |
recover data from the undamaged blocks in the file. | |
The compressed representation of each block is delimited by a 48-bit | |
pattern, which makes it possible to find the block boundaries with | |
reasonable certainty. Each block also carries its own 32-bit CRC, so | |
damaged blocks can be distinguished from undamaged ones. | |
.I bzip2recover | |
is a simple program whose purpose is to search for | |
blocks in .bz2 files, and write each block out into its own .bz2 | |
file. You can then use | |
.I bzip2 | |
\-t | |
to test the | |
integrity of the resulting files, and decompress those which are | |
undamaged. | |
.I bzip2recover | |
takes a single argument, the name of the damaged file, | |
and writes a number of files "rec00001file.bz2", | |
"rec00002file.bz2", etc, containing the extracted blocks. | |
The output filenames are designed so that the use of | |
wildcards in subsequent processing -- for example, | |
"bzip2 -dc rec*file.bz2 > recovered_data" -- processes the files in | |
the correct order. | |
.I bzip2recover | |
should be of most use dealing with large .bz2 | |
files, as these will contain many blocks. It is clearly | |
futile to use it on damaged single-block files, since a | |
damaged block cannot be recovered. If you wish to minimise | |
any potential data loss through media or transmission errors, | |
you might consider compressing with a smaller | |
block size. | |
.SH PERFORMANCE NOTES | |
The sorting phase of compression gathers together similar strings in the | |
file. Because of this, files containing very long runs of repeated | |
symbols, like "aabaabaabaab ..." (repeated several hundred times) may | |
compress more slowly than normal. Versions 0.9.5 and above fare much | |
better than previous versions in this respect. The ratio between | |
worst-case and average-case compression time is in the region of 10:1. | |
For previous versions, this figure was more like 100:1. You can use the | |
\-vvvv option to monitor progress in great detail, if you want. | |
Decompression speed is unaffected by these phenomena. | |
.I bzip2 | |
usually allocates several megabytes of memory to operate | |
in, and then charges all over it in a fairly random fashion. This means | |
that performance, both for compressing and decompressing, is largely | |
determined by the speed at which your machine can service cache misses. | |
Because of this, small changes to the code to reduce the miss rate have | |
been observed to give disproportionately large performance improvements. | |
I imagine | |
.I bzip2 | |
will perform best on machines with very large caches. | |
.SH CAVEATS | |
I/O error messages are not as helpful as they could be. | |
.I bzip2 | |
tries hard to detect I/O errors and exit cleanly, but the details of | |
what the problem is sometimes seem rather misleading. | |
This manual page pertains to version 1.0.8 of | |
.I bzip2. | |
Compressed data created by this version is entirely forwards and | |
backwards compatible with the previous public releases, versions | |
0.1pl2, 0.9.0, 0.9.5, 1.0.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2 and above, but with the following | |
exception: 0.9.0 and above can correctly decompress multiple | |
concatenated compressed files. 0.1pl2 cannot do this; it will stop | |
after decompressing just the first file in the stream. | |
.I bzip2recover | |
versions prior to 1.0.2 used 32-bit integers to represent | |
bit positions in compressed files, so they could not handle compressed | |
files more than 512 megabytes long. Versions 1.0.2 and above use | |
64-bit ints on some platforms which support them (GNU supported | |
targets, and Windows). To establish whether or not bzip2recover was | |
built with such a limitation, run it without arguments. In any event | |
you can build yourself an unlimited version if you can recompile it | |
with MaybeUInt64 set to be an unsigned 64-bit integer. | |
.SH AUTHOR | |
Julian Seward, [email protected]. | |
https://sourceware.org/bzip2/ | |
The ideas embodied in | |
.I bzip2 | |
are due to (at least) the following | |
people: Michael Burrows and David Wheeler (for the block sorting | |
transformation), David Wheeler (again, for the Huffman coder), Peter | |
Fenwick (for the structured coding model in the original | |
.I bzip, | |
and many refinements), and Alistair Moffat, Radford Neal and Ian Witten | |
(for the arithmetic coder in the original | |
.I bzip). | |
I am much | |
indebted for their help, support and advice. See the manual in the | |
source distribution for pointers to sources of documentation. Christian | |
von Roques encouraged me to look for faster sorting algorithms, so as to | |
speed up compression. Bela Lubkin encouraged me to improve the | |
worst-case compression performance. | |
Donna Robinson XMLised the documentation. | |
The bz* scripts are derived from those of GNU gzip. | |
Many people sent patches, helped | |
with portability problems, lent machines, gave advice and were generally | |
helpful. | |