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Bzip2

The bzip2 (.bz2) file consists of a single bzip2 stream. The bzip2 stream consists of:

  • The stream header.

The stream header is 4 bytes in size and contains:

Offset

Size

Value

Description

0

2

"BZ"

Signature (magic number)

2

1

Version
'h' for Bzip2 ('H'uffman coding), '0' for Bzip1 (deprecated)

3

1

Block size
Value is defined in increments of 100 kB
'1'..'9' block-size 100 kB-900 kB (uncompressed)
Note: currently assumed that kB should be kiB
  • followed by zero or more compressed blocks
.compressed_magic:48            = 0x314159265359 (BCD (pi))
.crc:32                         = checksum for this block
.randomised:1                   = 0=>normal, 1=>randomised (deprecated)
.origPtr:24                     = starting pointer into BWT for after untransform
.huffman_used_map:16            = bitmap, of ranges of 16 bytes, present/not present
.huffman_used_bitmaps:0..256    = bitmap, of symbols used, present/not present (multiples of 16)
.huffman_groups:3               = 2..6 number of different Huffman tables in use
.selectors_used:15              = number of times that the Huffman tables are swapped (each 50 bytes)
*.selector_list:1..6            = zero-terminated bit runs (0..62) of MTF'ed Huffman table (*selectors_used)
.start_huffman_length:5         = 0..20 starting bit length for Huffman deltas
*.delta_bit_length:1..40        = 0=>next symbol; 1=>alter length
                                                { 1=>decrement length;  0=>increment length } (*(symbols+2)*groups)
.contents:2..∞                  = Huffman encoded data stream until end of block
  • immediately followed by an end-of-stream marker containing a 32-bit CRC for the uncompressed data.
.eos_magic:48                   = 0x177245385090 (BCD sqrt(pi))
.crc:32                         = checksum for whole stream
.padding:0..7                   = align to whole byte

The compressed blocks are bit-aligned and no padding occurs.

See also