easy7zip/DOC/Methods-Extern.md

7-Zip external method IDs, that are not included to 7-Zip

History of this document

• see https://github.com/mcmilk/7-Zip-zstd/commits/master/DOC/Methods-Extern.md

Overview of defined ID ranges

ID	Codec, Author	7-Zip Plugin Author
F7 0x xx	reserved
F7 10 xx	LZHAM, Rich Geldreich	Rich Geldreich
F7 11 01	Zstandard, Yann Collet	Tino Reichardt
F7 11 02	Brotli, Google	Tino Reichardt
F7 11 04	LZ4, Yann Collet	Tino Reichardt
F7 11 05	LZ5, Przemyslaw Skibinski	Tino Reichardt
F7 11 06	Lizard, Przemyslaw Skibinski	Tino Reichardt

Range F7 10 xx - LZHAM

Description: Lossless is a data compression codec with LZMA-like ratios but 1.5x-8x faster decompression speed.

License: LZHAM library is provided as open source software using the MIT license.

7-Zip Container Header:

 Byte _ver;
 Byte _dict_size;
 Byte _level;
 Byte _flags;
 Byte _reserved[1];

Algorithm author: Rich Geldreich

• Homepage: https://github.com/richgel999/lzham_codec
• Source: https://github.com/richgel999/lzham_codec

Codec plugin author: Rich Geldreich

• Homepage: http://richg42.blogspot.com/2015/11/lzham-custom-codec-plugin-for-7-zip.html
• Source: https://github.com/richgel999/lzham_codec_devel

Range F7 11 01, Zstandard

Description: Zstandard is a real-time compression algorithm, providing high compression ratios. It offers a very wide range of compression / speed trade-off, while being backed by a very fast decoder.

License: Zstandard library is provided as open source software using the BSD license.

7-Zip Container Header: This header is mandatory and must be exact 3 or 5 bytes. The data within that header is for informational purposes only and not used by the decoder. If the header is not there, or has another size, the decoder will not decompress the content.

 Byte _ver_major;   // currently 1
 Byte _ver_minor;   // currently 2
 Byte _level;       // currently 1..22 or 33..MaxFastLevel
 Byte _reserved[2]; // not given in 3 byte header

• this header holds some information about the version, which was used for creating that 7-Zip container data
• _ver_major should contain the major release of zstd
• _ver_minor should contain the major release of zstd
• _level should contain the level, the data is packed with
• negative fast level values are stored as fastlevel+32 (33 = fastlevel 1 and so on..)
• the other two bytes, if present, should be set to zero currently and are reserved for future use

Algorithm author: Yann Collet

• Homepage: https://facebook.github.io/zstd/
• Source: https://github.com/facebook/zstd

Codec plugin author: Tino Reichardt

• Homepage: https://mcmilk.de/projects/7-Zip-zstd/
• Source: https://github.com/mcmilk/7-Zip-zstd

Modes:

• threading is supported through skippable frame id 0x184D2A50U
• all levels are supported (1..22)
• future versions of zstd will support multithreading out of the box
  • this new format is fully compatible with the one within this codec
• the codec is used as archiv handler also, see ZstdHandler.cpp
  • this handler is does not use any additional headers, it supports the plain zstd v1.0 format
  • when compiled with ZSTD_LEGACY_SUPPORT, then support is increased to these addtional version numbers of zstd: v0.1 up v0.7
• future formats of this algorithm will be fully compatible with release v1.0 of Zstandard (Zstandard 0.8 == Zstandard 1.0)
• one ID should be okay for this codec

Versions: The 7-Zip codec will be kept in sync with the current releases of Zstandard.

Range F7 11 02, Brotli

Description: Brotli is a generic-purpose lossless compression algorithm that compresses data using a combination of a modern variant of the LZ77 algorithm, Huffman coding and 2nd order context modeling, with a compression ratio comparable to the best currently available general-purpose compression methods. It is similar in speed with deflate but offers more dense compression.

License: The Brotli library is provided as open source software using the MIT license.

7-Zip Container Header (3 bytes): This header is mandatory and must be exact 3 bytes. The data within that header is for informational purposes only and not used by the decoder. If the header is not there, or has another size, the decoder will not decompress the content.

 Byte _ver_major; // currently 0
 Byte _ver_minor; // currently 6
 Byte _level;     // currently 0..11 (Brotli quality)

• this header holds some information about the version, which was used for creating that 7-Zip container data
• _ver_major should contain the major release of brotli
• _ver_minor should contain the major release of brotli
• _level should contain the level, the data is packed with

Algorithm author: Google Staff

• Homepage: https://brotli.org/
• Source: https://github.com/google/brotli

Codec plugin author: Tino Reichardt

• Homepage: https://mcmilk.de/projects/7-Zip-zstd/
• Source: https://github.com/mcmilk/7-Zip-zstd

Modes:

• threading is supported through skippable frame id 0x184D2A50U
• all levels are supported (1..11)
• one ID should be okay for this codec

Versions: The 7-Zip codec will be kept in sync with the current releases of Brotli.

Range F7 11 04, LZ4

Description: LZ4 is lossless compression algorithm, providing compression speed at 400 MB/s per core (0.16 Bytes/cycle). It features an extremely fast decoder, with speed in multiple GB/s per core (0.71 Bytes/cycle). A high compression derivative, called LZ4_HC, is available, trading customizable CPU time for compression ratio.

License: LZ4 library is provided as open source software using the BSD license.

7-Zip Container Header: This header is mandatory and must be exact 3 or 5 bytes. The data within that header is for informational purposes only and not used by the decoder. If the header is not there, or has another size, the decoder will not decompress the content.

 Byte _ver_major;   // currently 1
 Byte _ver_minor;   // currently 7
 Byte _level;       // 1..12
 Byte _reserved[2]; // not given in 3 byte header

• this header holds some information about the version, which was used for creating that 7-Zip container data
• _ver_major should contain the major release of LZ4
• _ver_minor should contain the major release of LZ4
• _level should contain the level, the data is packed with
• the other two bytes, if present, should be set to zero currently and are reserved for future use

Algorithm author: Yann Collet

• Homepage: https://lz4.github.io/lz4/
• Source: https://github.com/lz4/lz4

Codec plugin author: Tino Reichardt

• Homepage: https://mcmilk.de/projects/7-Zip-zstd/
• Source: https://github.com/mcmilk/7-Zip-zstd

Modes:

• threading is supported through skippable frame id 0x184D2A50U
• all levels of LZ4 v1.7.4 are supported (1..16)
• the codec is used as archiv handler also, see Lz4Handler.cpp
  • this handler is does not use any additional headers
  • it supports the plain LZ4 v1.7.4 format (this covers all current lz4 implemetations)
• future formats of this algorithm should be fully compatible with current release
• one ID should be okay for this codec

Versions: The 7-Zip codec will be kept in sync with the current releases of LZ4.

Range F7 11 05, LZ5

Description: LZ5 is a modification of LZ4 which gives a better ratio at cost of slower compression and decompression.

License: LZ5 library is provided as open source software using the BSD license.

7-Zip Container Header: This header is mandatory and must be exact 3 or 5 bytes. The data within that header is for informational purposes only and not used by the decoder. If the header is not there, or has another size, the decoder will not decompress the content.

 Byte _ver_major;   // currently 1
 Byte _ver_minor;   // currently 5
 Byte _level;       // 1..15
 Byte _reserved[2]; // not given in 3 byte header

• this header holds some information about the version, which was used for creating that 7-Zip container data
• _ver_major should contain the major release of LZ5
• _ver_minor should contain the major release of LZ5
• _level should contain the level, the data is packed with
• the other two bytes, if present, should be set to zero currently and are reserved for future use

Algorithm author: Przemyslaw Skibinski

• Homepage: https://github.com/inikep/lz5
• Source: https://github.com/inikep/lz5

Codec plugin author: Tino Reichardt

• Homepage: https://mcmilk.de/projects/7-Zip-zstd/
• Source: https://github.com/mcmilk/7-Zip-zstd

Modes:

• threading is supported through skippable frame id 0x184D2A50U
• all levels of v1.5 are supported, which means: 1..15
• the codec is used as archiv handler also, see Lz5Handler.cpp
  • this handler is does not use any additional headers, it supports the plain lz5 v1.5 format
• future formats of this algorithm will not follow
• one ID should be okay for this codec

Versions: The 7-Zip LZ5 codec will be frozen to v1.5 of this codec. No updates are planned.

Range F7 11 06, Lizard

Description: Lizard is an efficient compressor with very fast decompression. It achieves compression ratio that is comparable to zip/zlib and zstd/brotli (at low and medium compression levels) at decompression speed of 1000 MB/s and faster.

License: Lizard library is provided as open source software using the BSD license.

7-Zip Container Header: This header is mandatory and must be exact 3 bytes. The data within that header is for informational purposes only and not used by the decoder. If the header is not there, or has another size, the decoder will not decompress the content.

 Byte _ver_major;  // currently 1
 Byte _ver_minor;  // currently 0
 Byte _level;      // 10..49

• this header holds some information about the version, which was used for creating that 7-Zip container data
• _ver_major should contain the major release of Lizard
• _ver_minor should contain the major release of Lizard
• _level should contain the level, the data is packed with

Algorithm author: Przemyslaw Skibinski

• Homepage: https://github.com/inikep/lizard
• Source: https://github.com/inikep/lizard

Codec plugin author: Tino Reichardt

• Homepage: https://mcmilk.de/projects/7-Zip-zstd/
• Source: https://github.com/mcmilk/7-Zip-zstd

Modes:

• threading is supported through skippable frame id 0x184D2A50U
• all compression levels of v1.0 are supported, which means:
  1. Level 10..19
  • fastLZ4, designed to give better decompression speed than LZ4 i.e. over 2000 MB/s
  2. Level 20..29
  • LIZv1, designed to give better ratio than LZ4 keeping 75% decompression speed
  3. Level 30..39
  • fastLZ4 + Huffman, add Huffman coding to fastLZ4
  4. Level 40..49
  • LIZv1 + Huffman, give the best ratio
  • comparable to zlib and low levels of zstd/brotli
  • but also decompression speed of 1000 MB/s
• the codec is used as archiv handler also, see LizardHandler.cpp
  • this handler is does not use any additional headers, it supports the plain lizarv v1.0 format
• future formats of this algorithm will not follow
• one ID should be okay for this codec

Versions: The 7-Zip Lizard codec will be kept in sync with the current releases of Lizard.