xref: /freebsd/contrib/xz/TODO (revision d0b2dbfa0ecf2bbc9709efc5e20baf8e4b44bbbf)
1
2XZ Utils To-Do List
3===================
4
5Known bugs
6----------
7
8    The test suite is too incomplete.
9
10    If the memory usage limit is less than about 13 MiB, xz is unable to
11    automatically scale down the compression settings enough even though
12    it would be  possible by switching from BT2/BT3/BT4 match finder to
13    HC3/HC4.
14
15    XZ Utils compress some files significantly worse than LZMA Utils.
16    This is due to faster compression presets used by XZ Utils, and
17    can often be worked around by using "xz --extreme". With some files
18    --extreme isn't enough though: it's most likely with files that
19    compress extremely well, so going from compression ratio of 0.003
20    to 0.004 means big relative increase in the compressed file size.
21
22    xz doesn't quote unprintable characters when it displays file names
23    given on the command line.
24
25    tuklib_exit() doesn't block signals => EINTR is possible.
26
27    SIGTSTP is not handled. If xz is stopped, the estimated remaining
28    time and calculated (de)compression speed won't make sense in the
29    progress indicator (xz --verbose).
30
31    If liblzma has created threads and fork() gets called, liblzma
32    code will break in the child process unless it calls exec() and
33    doesn't touch liblzma.
34
35
36Missing features
37----------------
38
39    Add support for storing metadata in .xz files. A preliminary
40    idea is to create a new Stream type for metadata. When both
41    metadata and data are wanted in the same .xz file, two or more
42    Streams would be concatenated.
43
44    The state stored in lzma_stream should be cloneable, which would
45    be mostly useful when using a preset dictionary in LZMA2, but
46    it may have other uses too. Compare to deflateCopy() in zlib.
47
48    Support LZMA_FINISH in raw decoder to indicate end of LZMA1 and
49    other streams that don't have an end of payload marker.
50
51    Adjust dictionary size when the input file size is known.
52    Maybe do this only if an option is given.
53
54    xz doesn't support copying extended attributes, access control
55    lists etc. from source to target file.
56
57    Multithreaded compression:
58      - Reduce memory usage of the current method.
59      - Implement threaded match finders.
60      - Implement pigz-style threading in LZMA2.
61
62    Buffer-to-buffer coding could use less RAM (especially when
63    decompressing LZMA1 or LZMA2).
64
65    I/O library is not implemented (similar to gzopen() in zlib).
66    It will be a separate library that supports uncompressed, .gz,
67    .bz2, .lzma, and .xz files.
68
69    Support changing lzma_options_lzma.mode with lzma_filters_update().
70
71    Support LZMA_FULL_FLUSH for lzma_stream_decoder() to stop at
72    Block and Stream boundaries.
73
74    lzma_strerror() to convert lzma_ret to human readable form?
75    This is tricky, because the same error codes are used with
76    slightly different meanings, and this cannot be fixed anymore.
77
78    Make it possible to adjust LZMA2 options in the middle of a Block
79    so that the encoding speed vs. compression ratio can be optimized
80    when the compressed data is streamed over network.
81
82    Improved BCJ filters. The current filters are small but they aren't
83    so great when compressing binary packages that contain various file
84    types. Specifically, they make things worse if there are static
85    libraries or Linux kernel modules. The filtering could also be
86    more effective (without getting overly complex), for example,
87    streamable variant BCJ2 from 7-Zip could be implemented.
88
89    Filter that autodetects specific data types in the input stream
90    and applies appropriate filters for the corrects parts of the input.
91    Perhaps combine this with the BCJ filter improvement point above.
92
93    Long-range LZ77 method as a separate filter or as a new LZMA2
94    match finder.
95
96
97Documentation
98-------------
99
100    More tutorial programs are needed for liblzma.
101
102    Document the LZMA1 and LZMA2 algorithms.
103
104
105Miscellaneous
106------------
107
108    Try to get the media type for .xz registered at IANA.
109
110