snappy-java [](https://travis-ci.org/xerial/snappy-java) [](https://maven-badges.herokuapp.com/maven-central/org.xerial.snappy/snappy-java/) [](http://javadoc-badge.appspot.com/org.xerial.snappy/snappy-java) [](https://www.versioneye.com/java/org.xerial.snappy:snappy-java/references)
===
snappy-java is a Java port of the snappy
, a fast C++ compresser/decompresser developed by Google.
## Features
* Fast compression/decompression around 200~400MB/sec.
* Less memory usage. SnappyOutputStream uses only 32KB+ in default.
* JNI-based implementation to achieve comparable performance to the native C++ version.
* Although snappy-java uses JNI, it can be used safely with multiple class loaders (e.g. Tomcat, etc.).
* Compression/decompression of Java primitive arrays (`float[]`, `double[]`, `int[]`, `short[]`, `long[]`, etc.)
* To improve the compression ratios of these arrays, you can use a fast data-rearrangement implementation ([`BitShuffle`](https://oss.sonatype.org/service/local/repositories/releases/archive/org/xerial/snappy/snappy-java/1.1.3-M1/snappy-java-1.1.3-M1-javadoc.jar/!/org/xerial/snappy/BitShuffle.html)) before compression
* Portable across various operating systems; Snappy-java contains native libraries built for Window/Mac/Linux (64-bit). snappy-java loads one of these libraries according to your machine environment (It looks system properties, `os.name` and `os.arch`).
* Simple usage. Add the snappy-java-(version).jar file to your classpath. Then call compression/decompression methods in `org.xerial.snappy.Snappy`.
* [Framing-format support](https://github.com/google/snappy/blob/master/framing_format.txt) (Since 1.1.0 version)
* OSGi support
* [Apache License Version 2.0](http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0). Free for both commercial and non-commercial use.
## Performance
* Snappy's main target is very high-speed compression/decompression with reasonable compression size. So the compression ratio of snappy-java is modest and about the same as `LZF` (ranging 20%-100% according to the dataset).
* Here are some [benchmark results](https://github.com/ning/jvm-compressor-benchmark/wiki), comparing
snappy-java and the other compressors
`LZO-java`/`LZF`/`QuickLZ`/`Gzip`/`Bzip2`. Thanks [Tatu Saloranta @cotowncoder](http://twitter.com/#!/cowtowncoder) for providing the benchmark suite.
* The benchmark result indicates snappy-java is the fastest compreesor/decompressor in Java: http://ning.github.com/jvm-compressor-benchmark/results/canterbury-roundtrip-2011-07-28/index.html
* The decompression speed is twice as fast as the others: http://ning.github.com/jvm-compressor-benchmark/results/canterbury-uncompress-2011-07-28/index.html
## Download
[](https://maven-badges.herokuapp.com/maven-central/org.xerial.snappy/snappy-java/) [](http://javadoc-badge.appspot.com/org.xerial.snappy/snappy-java)
* [Release Notes](Milestone.md)
The current stable version is available from here:
* Release version: http://central.maven.org/maven2/org/xerial/snappy/snappy-java/
* Snapshot version (the latest beta version): https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots/org/xerial/snappy/snappy-java/
### Using with Maven
* Snappy-java is available from Maven's central repository:
Add the following dependency to your pom.xml:
org.xerial.snappy
snappy-java
(version)
jar
compile
### Using with sbt
```
libraryDependencies += "org.xerial.snappy" % "snappy-java" % "(version)"
```
## Usage
First, import `org.xerial.snapy.Snappy` in your Java code:
```java
import org.xerial.snappy.Snappy;
```
Then use `Snappy.compress(byte[])` and `Snappy.uncompress(byte[])`:
```java
String input = "Hello snappy-java! Snappy-java is a JNI-based wrapper of "
+ "Snappy, a fast compresser/decompresser.";
byte[] compressed = Snappy.compress(input.getBytes("UTF-8"));
byte[] uncompressed = Snappy.uncompress(compressed);
String result = new String(uncompressed, "UTF-8");
System.out.println(result);
```
In addition, high-level methods (`Snappy.compress(String)`, `Snappy.compress(float[] ..)` etc. ) and low-level ones (e.g. `Snappy.rawCompress(.. )`, `Snappy.rawUncompress(..)`, etc.), which minimize memory copies, can be used.
### Stream-based API
Stream-based compressor/decompressor `SnappyOutputStream`/`SnappyInputStream` are also available for reading/writing large data sets. `SnappyFramedOutputStream`/`SnappyFramedInputStream` can be used for the [framing format](https://github.com/google/snappy/blob/master/framing_format.txt).
* See also [Javadoc API](https://oss.sonatype.org/service/local/repositories/releases/archive/org/xerial/snappy/snappy-java/1.1.3-M1/snappy-java-1.1.3-M1-javadoc.jar/!/index.html)
#### Compatibility Notes
* `SnappyOutputStream` and `SnappyInputStream` use `[magic header:16 bytes]([block size:int32][compressed data:byte array])*` format. You can read the result of `Snappy.compress` with `SnappyInputStream`, but you cannot read the compressed data generated by `SnappyOutputStream` with `Snappy.uncompress`. Here is the data format compatibility matrix:
* `SnappyHadoopCompatibleOutputStream` does not emit a file header but write out the current block size as a preemble to each block
| Write\Read | `Snappy.uncompress` | `SnappyInputStream` | `SnappyFramedInputStream` | `org.apache.hadoop.io.compress.SnappyCodec` |
| --------------- |:-------------------:|:------------------:|:-----------------------:|:-------------------------------------------:|
| `Snappy.compress` | ok | ok | x | x |
| `SnappyOutputStream` | x | ok | x | x |
| `SnappyFramedOutputStream` | x | x | ok | x |
| `SnappyHadoopCompatibleOutputStream` | x | x | x | ok |
### BitShuffle API (Since 1.1.3-M2)
BitShuffle is an algorithm that reorders data bits (shuffle) for efficient compression (e.g., a sequence of integers, float values, etc.). To use BitShuffle routines, import `org.xerial.snapy.BitShuffle`:
```java
import org.xerial.snappy.BitShuffle;
int[] data = new int[] {1, 3, 34, 43, 34};
byte[] shuffledByteArray = BitShuffle.shuffle(data);
byte[] compressed = Snappy.compress(shuffledByteArray);
byte[] uncompressed = Snappy.uncompress(compressed);
int[] result = BitShuffle.unshuffleIntArray(uncompress);
System.out.println(result);
```
Shuffling and unshuffling of primitive arrays (e.g., `short[]`, `long[]`, `float[]`, `double[]`, etc.) are supported. See [Javadoc](http://static.javadoc.io/org.xerial.snappy/snappy-java/1.1.3-M1/org/xerial/snappy/BitShuffle.html) for the details.
### Setting classpath
If you have snappy-java-(VERSION).jar in the current directory, use `-classpath` option as follows:
$ javac -classpath ".;snappy-java-(VERSION).jar" Sample.java # in Windows
or
$ javac -classpath ".:snappy-java-(VERSION).jar" Sample.java # in Mac or Linux
## Public discussion group
Post bug reports or feature request to the Issue Tracker:
Public discussion forum is here: [Xerial Public Discussion Group](http://groups.google.com/group/xerial?hl=en)
## For developers
snappy-java uses sbt (simple build tool for Scala) as a build tool. Here is a simple usage
$ ./sbt # enter sbt console
> ~test # run tests upon source code change
> ~test-only * # run tests that matches a given name pattern
> publishM2 # publish jar to $HOME/.m2/repository
> package # create jar file
> findbugs # Produce findbugs report in target/findbugs
> jacoco:cover # Report the code coverage of tests to target/jacoco folder
If you need to see detailed debug messages, launch sbt with `-Dloglevel=debug` option:
```
$ ./sbt -Dloglevel=debug
```
For the details of sbt usage, see my blog post: [Building Java Projects with sbt](http://xerial.org/blog/2014/03/24/sbt/)
### Building from the source code
See the [build instruction](https://github.com/xerial/snappy-java/blob/master/BUILD.md). Building from the source code is an option when your OS platform and CPU architecture is not supported. To build snappy-java, you need Git, JDK (1.6 or higher), g++ compiler (mingw in Windows) etc.
$ git clone https://github.com/xerial/snappy-java.git
$ cd snappy-java
$ make
When building on Solaris, use `gmake`:
$ gmake
A file `target/snappy-java-$(version).jar` is the product additionally containing the native library built for your platform.
## Miscellaneous Notes
### Using snappy-java with Tomcat 6 (or higher) Web Server
Simply put the snappy-java's jar to WEB-INF/lib folder of your web application. Usual JNI-library specific problem no longer exists since snappy-java version 1.0.3 or higher can be loaded by multiple class loaders.
### Configure snappy-java using property file
Prepare org-xerial-snappy.properties file (under the root path of your library) in Java's property file format.
Here is a list of the available properties:
* org.xerial.snappy.lib.path (directory containing a snappyjava's native library)
* org.xerial.snappy.lib.name (library file name)
* org.xerial.snappy.tempdir (temporary directory to extract a native library bundled in snappy-java)
* org.xerial.snappy.use.systemlib (if this value is true, use system installed libsnappyjava.so looking the path specified by java.library.path)
----
Snappy-java is developed by [Taro L. Saito](http://www.xerial.org/leo). Twitter [@taroleo](http://twitter.com/#!/taroleo)