NAME

lz4 - lz4, unlz4, lz4cat - Compress or decompress .lz4 files

SYNOPSIS

lz4 [OPTIONS] [-|INPUT-FILE] OUTPUT-FILE

unlz4 is equivalent to lz4 -d

lz4cat is equivalent to lz4 -dcfm

When writing scripts that need to decompress files, it is recommended to always use the name lz4 with appropriate arguments (lz4 -d or lz4 -dc) instead of the names unlz4 and lz4cat.

DESCRIPTION

lz4 is an extremely fast lossless compression algorithm, based on byte-aligned LZ77 family of compression scheme. lz4 offers compression speeds of 400 MB/s per core, linearly scalable with multi-core CPUs. It features an extremely fast decoder, with speed in multiple GB/s per core, typically reaching RAM speed limit on multi-core systems. The native file format is the .lz4 format.

Difference between lz4 and gzip

lz4 supports a command line syntax similar but not identical to gzip(1). Differences are :

Default behaviors can be modified by opt-in commands, detailed below.

Concatenation of .lz4 files

It is possible to concatenate .lz4 files as is. lz4 will decompress such files as if they were a single .lz4 file. For example:


lz4 file1  > foo.lz4
lz4 file2 >> foo.lz4

Then lz4cat foo.lz4 is equivalent to cat file1 file2.

OPTIONS

Short commands concatenation

In some cases, some options can be expressed using short command -x or long command --long-word. Short commands can be concatenated together. For example, -d -c is equivalent to -dc. Long commands cannot be concatenated. They must be clearly separated by a space.

Multiple commands

When multiple contradictory commands are issued on a same command line, only the latest one will be applied.

Operation mode

-z --compress

Compress. This is the default operation mode when no operation mode option is specified, no other operation mode is implied from the command name (for example, unlz4 implies --decompress), nor from the input file name (for example, a file extension .lz4 implies --decompress by default). -z can also be used to force compression of an already compressed .lz4 file.

-d --decompress --uncompress

Decompress. --decompress is also the default operation when the input filename has an .lz4 extension.

-t --test

Test the integrity of compressed .lz4 files. The decompressed data is discarded. No files are created nor removed.

-b#

Benchmark mode, using # compression level.

--list

List information about .lz4 files. note : current implementation is limited to single-frame .lz4 files.

Operation modifiers

-#

Compression level, with # being any value from 1 to 12. Higher values trade compression speed for compression ratio. Values above 12 are considered the same as 12. Recommended values are 1 for fast compression (default), and 9 for high compression. Speed/compression trade-off will vary depending on data to compress. Decompression speed remains fast at all settings.

--fast[=#]

Switch to ultra-fast compression levels. The higher the value, the faster the compression speed, at the cost of some compression ratio. If =# is not present, it defaults to 1. This setting overrides compression level if one was set previously. Similarly, if a compression level is set after --fast, it overrides it.

--best

Set highest compression level. Same as -12.

--favor-decSpeed

Generate compressed data optimized for decompression speed. Compressed data will be larger as a consequence (typically by ~0.5%), while decompression speed will be improved by 5-20%, depending on use cases. This option only works in combination with very high compression levels (>=10).

-D dictionaryName

Compress, decompress or benchmark using dictionary dictionaryName. Compression and decompression must use the same dictionary to be compatible. Using a different dictionary during decompression will either abort due to decompression error, or generate a checksum error.

-f --[no-]force

This option has several effects:

If the target file already exists, overwrite it without prompting.

When used with --decompress and lz4 cannot recognize the type of the source file, copy the source file as is to standard output. This allows lz4cat --force to be used like cat (1) for files that have not been compressed with lz4.

-c --stdout --to-stdout

Force write to standard output, even if it is the console.

-m --multiple

Multiple input files. Compressed file names will be appended a .lz4 suffix. This mode also reduces notification level. Can also be used to list multiple files. lz4 -m has a behavior equivalent to gzip -k (it preserves source files by default).

-r

operate recursively on directories. This mode also sets -m (multiple input files).

-B#

Block size [4-7](default : 7)
-B4= 64KB ; -B5= 256KB ; -B6= 1MB ; -B7= 4MB

-BI

Produce independent blocks (default)

-BD

Blocks depend on predecessors (improves compression ratio, more noticeable on small blocks)

--[no-]frame-crc

Select frame checksum (default:enabled)

--[no-]content-size

Header includes original size (default:not present)
Note : this option can only be activated when the original size can be determined, hence for a file. It won't work with unknown source size, such as stdin or pipe.

--[no-]sparse

Sparse mode support (default:enabled on file, disabled on stdout)

-l

Use Legacy format (typically for Linux Kernel compression)
Note : -l is not compatible with -m (--multiple) nor -r

Other options

-v --verbose

Verbose mode

-q --quiet

Suppress warnings and real-time statistics; specify twice to suppress errors too

-h -H --help

Display help/long help and exit

-V --version

Display Version number and exit

-k --keep

Preserve source files (default behavior)

--rm

Delete source files on successful compression or decompression

--

Treat all subsequent arguments as files

Benchmark mode

-b#

Benchmark file(s), using # compression level

-e#

Benchmark multiple compression levels, from b# to e# (included)

-i#

Minimum evaluation time in seconds [1-9] (default : 3)

BUGS

Report bugs at: https://github.com/lz4/lz4/issues

AUTHOR

Yann Collet