zlib data compression library for the next generation systems
Maintained by Hans Kristian Rosbach aka Dead2 (zlib-ng àt circlestorm dót org)
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The motivation for this fork was due to seeing several 3rd party contributions containing new optimizations not getting implemented into the official zlib repository.
Mark Adler has been maintaining zlib for a very long time, and he has done a great job and hopefully he will continue for a long time yet. The idea of zlib-ng is not to replace zlib, but to co-exist as a drop-in replacement with a lower threshold for code change.
zlib has a long history and is incredibly portable, even supporting lots of systems that predate the Internet. This is great, but it does complicate further development and maintainability. The zlib code has numerous workarounds for old compilers that do not understand ANSI-C or to accommodate systems with limitations such as operating in a 16-bit environment.
Many of these workarounds are only maintenance burdens, some of them are pretty huge code-wise. For example, the [v]s[n]printf workaround code has a whopping 8 different implementations just to cater to various old compilers. With this many workarounds cluttered throughout the code, new programmers with an idea/interest for zlib will need to take some time to figure out why all of these seemingly strange things are used, and how to work within those confines.
So I decided to make a fork, merge all the Intel optimizations, merge the Cloudflare optimizations that did not conflict, plus a couple of other smaller patches. Then I started cleaning out workarounds, various dead code, all contrib and example code as there is little point in having those in this fork for various reasons.
A lot of improvements have gone into zlib-ng since its start, and numerous people have contributed both small and big improvements, or valuable testing.
Please read LICENSE.md, it is very simple and very liberal.
There are two ways to build zlib-ng:
To build zlib-ng using the cross-platform makefile generator cmake.
cmake .
cmake --build . --config Release
ctest --verbose -C Release
Alternatively, yuou can use the cmake configuration GUI tool ccmake:
ccmake .
To build zlib-ng using the bash configure script:
./configure
make
make test
| CMake | configure | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| ZLIB_COMPAT | --zlib-compat | Compile with zlib compatible API | OFF |
| ZLIB_ENABLE_TESTS | Build test binaries | ON | |
| WITH_GZFILEOP | --with-gzfileops | Compile with support for gzFile related functions | OFF |
| WITH_MSAN | --with-msan | Build with memory sanitizer | OFF |
| WITH_OPTIM | --without-optimizations | Build with optimisations | ON |
| WITH_NEW_STRATEGIES | --without-new-strategies | Use new strategies | ON |
| WITH_NATIVE_INSTRUCTIONS | Instruct the compiler to use the full instruction set on this host (gcc/clang -march=native) | OFF | |
| --force-sse2 | Assume SSE2 instructions are always available | DISABLED (x86), ENABLED (x86_64) | |
| WITH_ACLE | --without-acle | Build with ACLE CRC | ON |
| WITH_NEON | --without-neon | Build with NEON intrinsics | ON |
| WITH_DFLTCC_DEFLATE | --with-dfltcc-deflate | Use DEFLATE COMPRESSION CALL instruction for compression on IBM Z | OFF |
| WITH_DFLTCC_INFLATE | --with-dfltcc-inflate | Use DEFLATE COMPRESSION CALL instruction for decompression on IBM Z | OFF |
| WITH_SANITIZERS | --with-sanitizers | Build with address sanitizer and all supported sanitizers other than memory sanitizer | OFF |
| WITH_FUZZERS | --with-fuzzers | Build test/fuzz | OFF |
WARNING: We do not recommend manually installing unless you really know what you are doing, because this can potentially override the system default zlib library, and any incompatability or wrong configuration of zlib-ng can make the whole system unusable, requiring recovery or reinstall. If you still want a manual install, we recommend using the /opt/ path prefix.
For Linux distros, an alternative way to use zlib-ng (if compiled in zlib-compat mode) instead of zlib, is through the use of the LD_PRELOAD environment variable. If the program is dynamically linked with zlib, then zlib-ng will temporarily be used instead by the program, without risking system-wide instability.
LD_PRELOAD=/opt/zlib-ng/libz.so.1.2.11.zlib-ng /usr/bin/program
To install zlib-ng system-wide using cmake:
cmake --build . --target install
To install zlib-ng system-wide using the configure script:
make install
Zlib-ng is a young project, and we aim to be open to contributions, and we would be delighted to receive pull requests on github. Just remember that any code you submit must be your own and it must be zlib licensed. Help with testing and reviewing of pull requests etc is also very much appreciated.
If you are interested in contributing, please consider joining our IRC channel #zlib-ng on the Freenode IRC network.
Thanks to Servebolt.com for sponsoring my maintainership of zlib-ng.
Thanks go out to all the people and companies who have taken the time to contribute code reviews, testing and/or patches. Zlib-ng would not have been nearly as good without you.
The deflate format used by zlib was defined by Phil Katz. The deflate and zlib specifications were written by L. Peter Deutsch.
zlib was originally created by Jean-loup Gailly (compression) and Mark Adler (decompression).
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| arch/ | Architecture-specific code |
| doc/ | Documentation for formats and algorithms |
| test/example.c | Zlib usages examples for build testing |
| test/minigzip.c | Minimal gzip-like functionality for build testing |
| test/infcover.c | Inflate code coverage for build testing |
| win32/ | Shared library version resources for Windows |
| CMakeLists.txt | Cmake build script |
| configure | Bash configure/build script |
| adler32.c | Compute the Adler-32 checksum of a data stream |
| compress.c | Compress a memory buffer |
| deflate.* | Compress data using the deflate algorithm |
| deflate_fast.c | Compress data using the deflate algorithm with fast strategy |
| deflate_medium.c | Compress data using the deflate algorithm with medium stragety |
| deflate_slow.c | Compress data using the deflate algorithm with slow strategy |
| functable.* | Struct containing function pointers to optimized functions |
| gzclose.c | Close gzip files |
| gzguts.h | Internal definitions for gzip operations |
| gzlib.c | Functions common to reading and writing gzip files |
| gzread.c | Read gzip files |
| gzwrite.c | Write gzip files |
| infback.* | Inflate using a callback interface |
| inflate.* | Decompress data |
| inffast.* | Decompress data with speed optimizations |
| inffixed.h | Table for decoding fixed codes |
| inftrees.h | Generate Huffman trees for efficient decoding |
| memcopy.h | Inline functions to copy small data chunks |
| trees.* | Output deflated data using Huffman coding |
| uncompr.c | Decompress a memory buffer |
| zconf.h.cmakein | zconf.h template for cmake |
| zendian.h | BYTE_ORDER for endian tests |
| zlib.3 | Man page for zlib |
| zlib.map | Linux symbol information |
| zlib.pc.in | Pkg-config template |