IronCompress 1.6.1

There is a newer version of this package available.
See the version list below for details.
dotnet add package IronCompress --version 1.6.1                
NuGet\Install-Package IronCompress -Version 1.6.1                
This command is intended to be used within the Package Manager Console in Visual Studio, as it uses the NuGet module's version of Install-Package.
<PackageReference Include="IronCompress" Version="1.6.1" />                
For projects that support PackageReference, copy this XML node into the project file to reference the package.
paket add IronCompress --version 1.6.1                
#r "nuget: IronCompress, 1.6.1"                
#r directive can be used in F# Interactive and Polyglot Notebooks. Copy this into the interactive tool or source code of the script to reference the package.
// Install IronCompress as a Cake Addin
#addin nuget:?package=IronCompress&version=1.6.1

// Install IronCompress as a Cake Tool
#tool nuget:?package=IronCompress&version=1.6.1                

IronCompress

NuGet

<img src="icon.png" width=80 height=80 align="left"/> C++ compression methods joined together in one native library, cross-compiled for multiple architectures and exposed as a .NET library. .NET has built-in support for Gzip and Brotli (which is what this library is using) but other compression methods are either available only as native libraries hard (impossible for some) to consume, or ill-ported C# alternatives. In fact, I myself wrote one of them. Using native, original implementations is the way to go if you want to keep performance, security, and features up to date.

The library supports the following formats:

And following architectures:

Format Managed Windows Linux Mac OSX ◀️ OS<br />Arch πŸ”½
Snappy βœ…<br /><sup>via Snappier </sup> β›” β›” β›” x32
βœ… βœ… β›” x64
β›” βœ… βœ… ARM64
Zstd βœ…<br /><sup>via ZstdSharp</sup> β›” β›” β›” x32
βœ… βœ… β›” x64
β›” βœ… βœ… ARM64
Gzip βœ…<br /><sup>part of .NET</sup> β›” β›” β›” x32
βœ… βœ… βœ… x64
β›” βœ… βœ… ARM64
Brotli βœ…<br /><sup>except on .NET Standard 2.0</sup> β›” β›” β›” x32
βœ… βœ… β›” x64
β›” βœ… βœ… ARM64
LZO β›” β›” β›” β›” x32
βœ… βœ… β›” x64
β›” βœ… βœ… ARM64
LZ4 β›” β›” β›” β›” x32
βœ… βœ… β›” x64
β›” βœ… βœ… ARM64

I periodically update to the latest binaries. All the binaries are compiled from C/C++ source with CMake for major systems i.e. Linux, Windows and Mac OSX. They are then wrapped safely with a .NET interface.

Logic

Although managed versions are available, they will be only used as a fallback when native library is not available, because native libraries are faster and more up to date with latest advancements.

You can check which version was used by reading IronCompressResult.NativeUsed flag.

Using

This library only compresses buffers. It may work with streams in the future, but I am currently only interested in buffers. Essentially, you pass ReadOnlySpan<byte> as an input, and receive Span<T> as an output in the most efficient way.

Here is an example of how to compress buffer with snappy codec:

using IronCompress;	// root namespace

// Construct library entry point and optionally pass an implementation of ArrayPool.
// I will pass default shared pool here.
var iron = new Iron();

byte[] input = ...;
using(IronCompressResult compressed = iron.Compress(Codec.Snappy, input.AsSpan())) {
    // ... use data
}

Compressand Decompress methods actually return a Result class which wraps byte array of compression or decompression operation. You can access the underlying result by calling to .AsSpan() method inside the result. On dispose, Result makes sure the underlying memory is freed up - if pooling was used, it will be returned back to the pool.

To decompress:

using (IronCompressResult uncompressed = iron.Decompress(Codec.Snappy, compressed, input.Length)) {
	// ... use data
}

As with compression, this returns Result with decompressed data. It's worth nothing one important difference - decompression needs the length of output buffer specified as third parameter (input.Length). Although some decompressors can guess uncompressed length more or less correct, the others won't know it beforehand. In reality this problem is solved by using a framing format that adds metadata about resulting length, however many compression formats do not define that and consider compressed packets to be implementation specific.

You will need more or less recent C++ compiler, CMake and .NET SDK 8 to build the code.

Building

See workflow file for building instructions.

Hint: To develop managed only code locally you can download the latest artifact from Actions output and put it into native/ubin so you have binaries for all platforms.

Product Compatible and additional computed target framework versions.
.NET net5.0 was computed.  net5.0-windows was computed.  net6.0 is compatible.  net6.0-android was computed.  net6.0-ios was computed.  net6.0-maccatalyst was computed.  net6.0-macos was computed.  net6.0-tvos was computed.  net6.0-windows was computed.  net7.0 was computed.  net7.0-android was computed.  net7.0-ios was computed.  net7.0-maccatalyst was computed.  net7.0-macos was computed.  net7.0-tvos was computed.  net7.0-windows was computed.  net8.0 is compatible.  net8.0-android was computed.  net8.0-browser was computed.  net8.0-ios was computed.  net8.0-maccatalyst was computed.  net8.0-macos was computed.  net8.0-tvos was computed.  net8.0-windows was computed. 
.NET Core netcoreapp2.0 was computed.  netcoreapp2.1 was computed.  netcoreapp2.2 was computed.  netcoreapp3.0 was computed.  netcoreapp3.1 was computed. 
.NET Standard netstandard2.0 is compatible.  netstandard2.1 is compatible. 
.NET Framework net461 was computed.  net462 was computed.  net463 was computed.  net47 was computed.  net471 was computed.  net472 was computed.  net48 was computed.  net481 was computed. 
MonoAndroid monoandroid was computed. 
MonoMac monomac was computed. 
MonoTouch monotouch was computed. 
Tizen tizen40 was computed.  tizen60 was computed. 
Xamarin.iOS xamarinios was computed. 
Xamarin.Mac xamarinmac was computed. 
Xamarin.TVOS xamarintvos was computed. 
Xamarin.WatchOS xamarinwatchos was computed. 
Compatible target framework(s)
Included target framework(s) (in package)
Learn more about Target Frameworks and .NET Standard.

NuGet packages (63)

Showing the top 5 NuGet packages that depend on IronCompress:

Package Downloads
Parquet.Net

Fully managed Apache Parquet implementation.

Elsa

Bundles the most commonly-used packages when building an Elsa workflows application.

Elsa.Workflows.Management

Provides workflow management functionality.

Elsa.Workflows.Runtime

Provides workflow runtime functionality.

Elsa.JavaScript

Provides a JavaScript expression provider.

GitHub repositories (3)

Showing the top 3 popular GitHub repositories that depend on IronCompress:

Repository Stars
elsa-workflows/elsa-core
A .NET workflows library
aloneguid/parquet-dotnet
Fully managed Apache Parquet implementation
mjebrahimi/EasyCompressor
⚑An Easy-to-Use and Optimized compression library for .NET that unified several compression algorithms including LZ4, Snappy, Zstd, LZMA, Brotli, GZip, ZLib, and Deflate. This library aids in Improving Performance by Reducing Memory Usage and Bandwidth Usage. Along with a greate Performance Benchmark between different compression algorithms.
Version Downloads Last updated
1.6.3 140,347 10/14/2024
1.6.2 23,206 9/30/2024
1.6.1 171 9/30/2024
1.6.1-pre.1 63 9/27/2024
1.6.0 304 9/24/2024
1.6.0-pre.1 60 9/24/2024
1.5.2 500,299 5/22/2024
1.5.2-pre.1 87 5/22/2024
1.5.1 1,934,929 8/3/2023
1.5.0 221 8/3/2023
1.4.0 488,920 5/10/2023
1.3.0 602,630 1/27/2023
1.2.8 341 1/26/2023
1.2.7 9,206 1/23/2023
1.2.6 12,547 1/11/2023
1.2.5 84,223 12/21/2022
1.2.4 30,563 11/24/2022
1.2.3 139,190 11/10/2022
1.2.2 375 11/10/2022
1.2.0 394 11/9/2022
1.1.5 256,041 10/13/2022
1.1.4 424 10/12/2022
1.1.3 431 10/12/2022
1.1.2 406 10/12/2022
1.1.1 394 10/12/2022
1.1.0 425 10/11/2022
1.0.0 641 9/26/2022
1.0.0-preview-03 196 9/26/2022
1.0.0-preview-02 274 1/12/2022
1.0.0-preview-01 444 1/12/2022 1.0.0-preview-01 is deprecated because it is no longer maintained.