updated documentation regarding ZSTD_CLEVEL

make it clearer that it's useful for `tar --zstd`.
This commit is contained in:
Yann Collet
2020-05-08 10:51:37 -07:00
parent 602dae3509
commit e873697625
+19 -16
View File
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ There are however other Makefile targets that create different variations of CLI
- `zstd-decompress` : version of CLI which can only decompress zstd format
#### Compilation variables
### Compilation variables
`zstd` scope can be altered by modifying the following `make` variables :
- __HAVE_THREAD__ : multithreading is automatically enabled when `pthread` is detected.
@@ -69,11 +69,11 @@ There are however other Makefile targets that create different variations of CLI
Example : `make zstd BACKTRACE=1`
#### Aggregation of parameters
### Aggregation of parameters
CLI supports aggregation of parameters i.e. `-b1`, `-e18`, and `-i1` can be joined into `-b1e18i1`.
#### Symlink shortcuts
### Symlink shortcuts
It's possible to invoke `zstd` through a symlink.
When the name of the symlink has a specific value, it triggers an associated behavior.
- `zstdmt` : compress using all cores available on local system.
@@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ When the name of the symlink has a specific value, it triggers an associated beh
- `ungz`, `unxz` and `unlzma` will do the same, and will also remove source file by default (use `--keep` to preserve).
#### Dictionary builder in Command Line Interface
### Dictionary builder in Command Line Interface
Zstd offers a training mode, which can be used to tune the algorithm for a selected
type of data, by providing it with a few samples. The result of the training is stored
in a file selected with the `-o` option (default name is `dictionary`),
@@ -106,7 +106,7 @@ Usage of the dictionary builder and created dictionaries with CLI:
3. Decompress with the dictionary: `zstd --decompress FILE.zst -D dictionaryName`
#### Benchmark in Command Line Interface
### Benchmark in Command Line Interface
CLI includes in-memory compression benchmark module for zstd.
The benchmark is conducted using given filenames. The files are read into memory and joined together.
It makes benchmark more precise as it eliminates I/O overhead.
@@ -118,7 +118,7 @@ One can select compression levels starting from `-b` and ending with `-e`.
The `-i` parameter selects minimal time used for each of tested levels.
#### Usage of Command Line Interface
### Usage of Command Line Interface
The full list of options can be obtained with `-h` or `-H` parameter:
```
Usage :
@@ -172,16 +172,19 @@ Benchmark arguments :
--priority=rt : set process priority to real-time
```
#### Restricted usage of Environment Variables
Using environment variables to set parameters has security implications.
Therefore, this avenue is intentionally restricted.
Only `ZSTD_CLEVEL` is supported currently, for setting compression level.
`ZSTD_CLEVEL` can be used to set the level between 1 and 19 (the "normal" range).
If the value of `ZSTD_CLEVEL` is not a valid integer, it will be ignored with a warning message.
`ZSTD_CLEVEL` just replaces the default compression level (`3`).
It can be overridden by corresponding command line arguments.
### Passing parameters through Environment Variables
`ZSTD_CLEVEL` can be used to modify the default compression level of `zstd`
(usually set to `3`) to another value between 1 and 19 (the "normal" range).
This can be useful when `zstd` CLI is invoked in a way that doesn't allow passing arguments.
One such scenario is `tar --zstd`.
As `ZSTD_CLEVEL` only replaces the default compression level,
it can then be overridden by corresponding command line arguments.
#### Long distance matching mode
There is no "generic" way to pass "any kind of parameter" to `zstd` in a pass-through manner.
Using environment variables for this purpose has security implications.
Therefore, this avenue is intentionally restricted and only supports `ZSTD_CLEVEL`.
### Long distance matching mode
The long distance matching mode, enabled with `--long`, is designed to improve
the compression ratio for files with long matches at a large distance (up to the
maximum window size, `128 MiB`) while still maintaining compression speed.
@@ -233,7 +236,7 @@ The below table illustrates this on the [Silesia compression corpus].
| `zstd -10 --long`| `3.566` | `16.2 MB/s` | `415.7 MB/s` |
#### zstdgrep
### zstdgrep
`zstdgrep` is a utility which makes it possible to `grep` directly a `.zst` compressed file.
It's used the same way as normal `grep`, for example :