Zlib#
Source Code: lib/zlib.js
The node:zlib
module provides compression functionality implemented using
Gzip, Deflate/Inflate, and Brotli.
To access it:
const zlib = require('node:zlib');
Compression and decompression are built around the Node.js Streams API.
Compressing or decompressing a stream (such as a file) can be accomplished by
piping the source stream through a zlib
Transform
stream into a destination
stream:
const { createGzip } = require('node:zlib');
const { pipeline } = require('node:stream');
const {
createReadStream,
createWriteStream
} = require('node:fs');
const gzip = createGzip();
const source = createReadStream('input.txt');
const destination = createWriteStream('input.txt.gz');
pipeline(source, gzip, destination, (err) => {
if (err) {
console.error('An error occurred:', err);
process.exitCode = 1;
}
});
const { promisify } = require('node:util');
const pipe = promisify(pipeline);
async function do_gzip(input, output) {
const gzip = createGzip();
const source = createReadStream(input);
const destination = createWriteStream(output);
await pipe(source, gzip, destination);
}
do_gzip('input.txt', 'input.txt.gz')
.catch((err) => {
console.error('An error occurred:', err);
process.exitCode = 1;
});
It is also possible to compress or decompress data in a single step:
const { deflate, unzip } = require('node:zlib');
const input = '.................................';
deflate(input, (err, buffer) => {
if (err) {
console.error('An error occurred:', err);
process.exitCode = 1;
}
console.log(buffer.toString('base64'));
});
const buffer = Buffer.from('eJzT0yMAAGTvBe8=', 'base64');
unzip(buffer, (err, buffer) => {
if (err) {
console.error('An error occurred:', err);
process.exitCode = 1;
}
console.log(buffer.toString());
});
const { promisify } = require('node:util');
const do_unzip = promisify(unzip);
do_unzip(buffer)
.then((buf) => console.log(buf.toString()))
.catch((err) => {
console.error('An error occurred:', err);
process.exitCode = 1;
});
Threadpool usage and performance considerations#
All zlib
APIs, except those that are explicitly synchronous, use the Node.js
internal threadpool. This can lead to surprising effects and performance
limitations in some applications.
Creating and using a large number of zlib objects simultaneously can cause
significant memory fragmentation.
const zlib = require('node:zlib');
const payload = Buffer.from('This is some data');
for (let i = 0; i < 30000; ++i) {
zlib.deflate(payload, (err, buffer) => {});
}
In the preceding example, 30,000 deflate instances are created concurrently.
Because of how some operating systems handle memory allocation and
deallocation, this may lead to significant memory fragmentation.
It is strongly recommended that the results of compression
operations be cached to avoid duplication of effort.
Compressing HTTP requests and responses#
The node:zlib
module can be used to implement support for the gzip
, deflate
and br
content-encoding mechanisms defined by
HTTP.
The HTTP Accept-Encoding
header is used within an HTTP request to identify
the compression encodings accepted by the client. The Content-Encoding
header is used to identify the compression encodings actually applied to a
message.
The examples given below are drastically simplified to show the basic concept.
Using zlib
encoding can be expensive, and the results ought to be cached.
See Memory usage tuning for more information on the speed/memory/compression
tradeoffs involved in zlib
usage.
const zlib = require('node:zlib');
const http = require('node:http');
const fs = require('node:fs');
const { pipeline } = require('node:stream');
const request = http.get({ host: 'example.com',
path: '/',
port: 80,
headers: { 'Accept-Encoding': 'br,gzip,deflate' } });
request.on('response', (response) => {
const output = fs.createWriteStream('example.com_index.html');
const onError = (err) => {
if (err) {
console.error('An error occurred:', err);
process.exitCode = 1;
}
};
switch (response.headers['content-encoding']) {
case 'br':
pipeline(response, zlib.createBrotliDecompress(), output, onError);
break;
case 'gzip':
pipeline(response, zlib.createGunzip(), output, onError);
break;
case 'deflate':
pipeline(response, zlib.createInflate(), output, onError);
break;
default:
pipeline(response, output, onError);
break;
}
});
const zlib = require('node:zlib');
const http = require('node:http');
const fs = require('node:fs');
const { pipeline } = require('node:stream');
http.createServer((request, response) => {
const raw = fs.createReadStream('index.html');
response.setHeader('Vary', 'Accept-Encoding');
let acceptEncoding = request.headers['accept-encoding'];
if (!acceptEncoding) {
acceptEncoding = '';
}
const onError = (err) => {
if (err) {
response.end();
console.error('An error occurred:', err);
}
};
if (/\bdeflate\b/.test(acceptEncoding)) {
response.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Encoding': 'deflate' });
pipeline(raw, zlib.createDeflate(), response, onError);
} else if (/\bgzip\b/.test(acceptEncoding)) {
response.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Encoding': 'gzip' });
pipeline(raw, zlib.createGzip(), response, onError);
} else if (/\bbr\b/.test(acceptEncoding)) {
response.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Encoding': 'br' });
pipeline(raw, zlib.createBrotliCompress(), response, onError);
} else {
response.writeHead(200, {});
pipeline(raw, response, onError);
}
}).listen(1337);
By default, the zlib
methods will throw an error when decompressing
truncated data. However, if it is known that the data is incomplete, or
the desire is to inspect only the beginning of a compressed file, it is
possible to suppress the default error handling by changing the flushing
method that is used to decompress the last chunk of input data:
const buffer = Buffer.from('eJzT0yMA', 'base64');
zlib.unzip(
buffer,
{ finishFlush: zlib.constants.Z_SYNC_FLUSH },
(err, buffer) => {
if (err) {
console.error('An error occurred:', err);
process.exitCode = 1;
}
console.log(buffer.toString());
});
This will not change the behavior in other error-throwing situations, e.g.
when the input data has an invalid format. Using this method, it will not be
possible to determine whether the input ended prematurely or lacks the
integrity checks, making it necessary to manually check that the
decompressed result is valid.
Memory usage tuning#
For zlib-based streams#
From zlib/zconf.h
, modified for Node.js usage:
The memory requirements for deflate are (in bytes):
(1 << (windowBits + 2)) + (1 << (memLevel + 9))
That is: 128K for windowBits
= 15 + 128K for memLevel
= 8
(default values) plus a few kilobytes for small objects.
For example, to reduce the default memory requirements from 256K to 128K, the
options should be set to:
const options = { windowBits: 14, memLevel: 7 };
This will, however, generally degrade compression.
The memory requirements for inflate are (in bytes) 1 << windowBits
.
That is, 32K for windowBits
= 15 (default value) plus a few kilobytes
for small objects.
This is in addition to a single internal output slab buffer of size
chunkSize
, which defaults to 16K.
The speed of zlib
compression is affected most dramatically by the
level
setting. A higher level will result in better compression, but
will take longer to complete. A lower level will result in less
compression, but will be much faster.
In general, greater memory usage options will mean that Node.js has to make
fewer calls to zlib
because it will be able to process more data on
each write
operation. So, this is another factor that affects the
speed, at the cost of memory usage.
For Brotli-based streams#
There are equivalents to the zlib options for Brotli-based streams, although
these options have different ranges than the zlib ones:
- zlib's
level
option matches Brotli's BROTLI_PARAM_QUALITY
option.
- zlib's
windowBits
option matches Brotli's BROTLI_PARAM_LGWIN
option.
See below for more details on Brotli-specific options.
Flushing#
Calling .flush()
on a compression stream will make zlib
return as much
output as currently possible. This may come at the cost of degraded compression
quality, but can be useful when data needs to be available as soon as possible.
In the following example, flush()
is used to write a compressed partial
HTTP response to the client:
const zlib = require('node:zlib');
const http = require('node:http');
const { pipeline } = require('node:stream');
http.createServer((request, response) => {
response.writeHead(200, { 'content-encoding': 'gzip' });
const output = zlib.createGzip();
let i;
pipeline(output, response, (err) => {
if (err) {
clearInterval(i);
response.end();
console.error('An error occurred:', err);
}
});
i = setInterval(() => {
output.write(`The current time is ${Date()}\n`, () => {
output.flush();
});
}, 1000);
}).listen(1337);
Constants#
Added in: v0.5.8
zlib constants#
All of the constants defined in zlib.h
are also defined on
require('node:zlib').constants
. In the normal course of operations, it will
not be necessary to use these constants. They are documented so that their
presence is not surprising. This section is taken almost directly from the
zlib documentation.
Previously, the constants were available directly from require('node:zlib')
,
for instance zlib.Z_NO_FLUSH
. Accessing the constants directly from the module
is currently still possible but is deprecated.
Allowed flush values.
zlib.constants.Z_NO_FLUSH
zlib.constants.Z_PARTIAL_FLUSH
zlib.constants.Z_SYNC_FLUSH
zlib.constants.Z_FULL_FLUSH
zlib.constants.Z_FINISH
zlib.constants.Z_BLOCK
zlib.constants.Z_TREES
Return codes for the compression/decompression functions. Negative
values are errors, positive values are used for special but normal
events.
zlib.constants.Z_OK
zlib.constants.Z_STREAM_END
zlib.constants.Z_NEED_DICT
zlib.constants.Z_ERRNO
zlib.constants.Z_STREAM_ERROR
zlib.constants.Z_DATA_ERROR
zlib.constants.Z_MEM_ERROR
zlib.constants.Z_BUF_ERROR
zlib.constants.Z_VERSION_ERROR
Compression levels.
zlib.constants.Z_NO_COMPRESSION
zlib.constants.Z_BEST_SPEED
zlib.constants.Z_BEST_COMPRESSION
zlib.constants.Z_DEFAULT_COMPRESSION
Compression strategy.
zlib.constants.Z_FILTERED
zlib.constants.Z_HUFFMAN_ONLY
zlib.constants.Z_RLE
zlib.constants.Z_FIXED
zlib.constants.Z_DEFAULT_STRATEGY
Brotli constants#
Added in: v11.7.0, v10.16.0
There are several options and other constants available for Brotli-based
streams:
Flush operations#
The following values are valid flush operations for Brotli-based streams:
zlib.constants.BROTLI_OPERATION_PROCESS
(default for all operations)
zlib.constants.BROTLI_OPERATION_FLUSH
(default when calling .flush()
)
zlib.constants.BROTLI_OPERATION_FINISH
(default for the last chunk)
zlib.constants.BROTLI_OPERATION_EMIT_METADATA
- This particular operation may be hard to use in a Node.js context,
as the streaming layer makes it hard to know which data will end up
in this frame. Also, there is currently no way to consume this data through
the Node.js API.
Compressor options#
There are several options that can be set on Brotli encoders, affecting
compression efficiency and speed. Both the keys and the values can be accessed
as properties of the zlib.constants
object.
The most important options are:
BROTLI_PARAM_MODE
BROTLI_MODE_GENERIC
(default)
BROTLI_MODE_TEXT
, adjusted for UTF-8 text
BROTLI_MODE_FONT
, adjusted for WOFF 2.0 fonts
BROTLI_PARAM_QUALITY
- Ranges from
BROTLI_MIN_QUALITY
to BROTLI_MAX_QUALITY
,
with a default of BROTLI_DEFAULT_QUALITY
.
BROTLI_PARAM_SIZE_HINT
- Integer value representing the expected input size;
defaults to
0
for an unknown input size.
The following flags can be set for advanced control over the compression
algorithm and memory usage tuning:
BROTLI_PARAM_LGWIN
- Ranges from
BROTLI_MIN_WINDOW_BITS
to BROTLI_MAX_WINDOW_BITS
,
with a default of BROTLI_DEFAULT_WINDOW
, or up to
BROTLI_LARGE_MAX_WINDOW_BITS
if the BROTLI_PARAM_LARGE_WINDOW
flag
is set.
BROTLI_PARAM_LGBLOCK
- Ranges from
BROTLI_MIN_INPUT_BLOCK_BITS
to BROTLI_MAX_INPUT_BLOCK_BITS
.
BROTLI_PARAM_DISABLE_LITERAL_CONTEXT_MODELING
- Boolean flag that decreases compression ratio in favour of
decompression speed.
BROTLI_PARAM_LARGE_WINDOW
- Boolean flag enabling “Large Window Brotli” mode (not compatible with the
Brotli format as standardized in RFC 7932).
BROTLI_PARAM_NPOSTFIX
- Ranges from
0
to BROTLI_MAX_NPOSTFIX
.
BROTLI_PARAM_NDIRECT
- Ranges from
0
to 15 << NPOSTFIX
in steps of 1 << NPOSTFIX
.
Decompressor options#
These advanced options are available for controlling decompression:
BROTLI_DECODER_PARAM_DISABLE_RING_BUFFER_REALLOCATION
- Boolean flag that affects internal memory allocation patterns.
BROTLI_DECODER_PARAM_LARGE_WINDOW
- Boolean flag enabling “Large Window Brotli” mode (not compatible with the
Brotli format as standardized in RFC 7932).
Class: Options
#
Each zlib-based class takes an options
object. No options are required.
Some options are only relevant when compressing and are
ignored by the decompression classes.
See the deflateInit2
and inflateInit2
documentation for more
information.
Class: BrotliOptions
#
Each Brotli-based class takes an options
object. All options are optional.
For example:
const stream = zlib.createBrotliCompress({
chunkSize: 32 * 1024,
params: {
[zlib.constants.BROTLI_PARAM_MODE]: zlib.constants.BROTLI_MODE_TEXT,
[zlib.constants.BROTLI_PARAM_QUALITY]: 4,
[zlib.constants.BROTLI_PARAM_SIZE_HINT]: fs.statSync(inputFile).size
}
});
Class: zlib.BrotliCompress
#
Added in: v11.7.0, v10.16.0
Compress data using the Brotli algorithm.
Class: zlib.BrotliDecompress
#
Added in: v11.7.0, v10.16.0
Decompress data using the Brotli algorithm.
Class: zlib.Deflate
#
Added in: v0.5.8
Compress data using deflate.
Class: zlib.DeflateRaw
#
Added in: v0.5.8
Compress data using deflate, and do not append a zlib
header.
Class: zlib.Gunzip
#
Decompress a gzip stream.
Class: zlib.Gzip
#
Added in: v0.5.8
Compress data using gzip.
Class: zlib.Inflate
#
Decompress a deflate stream.
Class: zlib.InflateRaw
#
Decompress a raw deflate stream.
Class: zlib.Unzip
#
Added in: v0.5.8
Decompress either a Gzip- or Deflate-compressed stream by auto-detecting
the header.
Class: zlib.ZlibBase
#
Not exported by the node:zlib
module. It is documented here because it is the
base class of the compressor/decompressor classes.
This class inherits from stream.Transform
, allowing node:zlib
objects to
be used in pipes and similar stream operations.
zlib.bytesRead
#
Added in: v8.1.0Deprecated since: v10.0.0
Deprecated alias for zlib.bytesWritten
. This original name was chosen
because it also made sense to interpret the value as the number of bytes
read by the engine, but is inconsistent with other streams in Node.js that
expose values under these names.
zlib.bytesWritten
#
Added in: v10.0.0
The zlib.bytesWritten
property specifies the number of bytes written to
the engine, before the bytes are processed (compressed or decompressed,
as appropriate for the derived class).
zlib.close([callback])
#
Added in: v0.9.4
Close the underlying handle.
zlib.flush([kind, ]callback)
#
Added in: v0.5.8
kind
Default: zlib.constants.Z_FULL_FLUSH
for zlib-based streams,
zlib.constants.BROTLI_OPERATION_FLUSH
for Brotli-based streams.
callback
<Function>
Flush pending data. Don't call this frivolously, premature flushes negatively
impact the effectiveness of the compression algorithm.
Calling this only flushes data from the internal zlib
state, and does not
perform flushing of any kind on the streams level. Rather, it behaves like a
normal call to .write()
, i.e. it will be queued up behind other pending
writes and will only produce output when data is being read from the stream.
zlib.params(level, strategy, callback)
#
Added in: v0.11.4
This function is only available for zlib-based streams, i.e. not Brotli.
Dynamically update the compression level and compression strategy.
Only applicable to deflate algorithm.
zlib.reset()
#
Added in: v0.7.0
Reset the compressor/decompressor to factory defaults. Only applicable to
the inflate and deflate algorithms.
zlib.constants
#
Added in: v7.0.0
Provides an object enumerating Zlib-related constants.
zlib.createBrotliCompress([options])
#
Added in: v11.7.0, v10.16.0
Creates and returns a new BrotliCompress
object.
zlib.createBrotliDecompress([options])
#
Added in: v11.7.0, v10.16.0
Creates and returns a new BrotliDecompress
object.
zlib.createDeflate([options])
#
Added in: v0.5.8
Creates and returns a new Deflate
object.
zlib.createDeflateRaw([options])
#
Added in: v0.5.8
Creates and returns a new DeflateRaw
object.
An upgrade of zlib from 1.2.8 to 1.2.11 changed behavior when windowBits
is set to 8 for raw deflate streams. zlib would automatically set windowBits
to 9 if was initially set to 8. Newer versions of zlib will throw an exception,
so Node.js restored the original behavior of upgrading a value of 8 to 9,
since passing windowBits = 9
to zlib actually results in a compressed stream
that effectively uses an 8-bit window only.
zlib.createGunzip([options])
#
Added in: v0.5.8
Creates and returns a new Gunzip
object.
zlib.createGzip([options])
#
Added in: v0.5.8
Creates and returns a new Gzip
object.
See example.
zlib.createInflate([options])
#
Added in: v0.5.8
Creates and returns a new Inflate
object.
zlib.createInflateRaw([options])
#
Added in: v0.5.8
Creates and returns a new InflateRaw
object.
zlib.createUnzip([options])
#
Added in: v0.5.8
Creates and returns a new Unzip
object.
Convenience methods#
All of these take a Buffer
, TypedArray
, DataView
,
ArrayBuffer
or string as the first argument, an optional second argument
to supply options to the zlib
classes and will call the supplied callback
with callback(error, result)
.
Every method has a *Sync
counterpart, which accept the same arguments, but
without a callback.
zlib.brotliCompress(buffer[, options], callback)
#
Added in: v11.7.0, v10.16.0
zlib.brotliCompressSync(buffer[, options])
#
Added in: v11.7.0, v10.16.0
Compress a chunk of data with BrotliCompress
.
zlib.brotliDecompress(buffer[, options], callback)
#
Added in: v11.7.0, v10.16.0
zlib.brotliDecompressSync(buffer[, options])
#
Added in: v11.7.0, v10.16.0
Decompress a chunk of data with BrotliDecompress
.
zlib.deflate(buffer[, options], callback)
#
zlib.deflateSync(buffer[, options])
#
Compress a chunk of data with Deflate
.
zlib.deflateRaw(buffer[, options], callback)
#
zlib.deflateRawSync(buffer[, options])
#
Compress a chunk of data with DeflateRaw
.
zlib.gunzip(buffer[, options], callback)
#
zlib.gunzipSync(buffer[, options])
#
Decompress a chunk of data with Gunzip
.
zlib.gzip(buffer[, options], callback)
#
zlib.gzipSync(buffer[, options])
#
Compress a chunk of data with Gzip
.
zlib.inflate(buffer[, options], callback)
#
zlib.inflateSync(buffer[, options])
#
Decompress a chunk of data with Inflate
.
zlib.inflateRaw(buffer[, options], callback)
#
zlib.inflateRawSync(buffer[, options])
#
Decompress a chunk of data with InflateRaw
.
zlib.unzip(buffer[, options], callback)
#
zlib.unzipSync(buffer[, options])
#
Decompress a chunk of data with Unzip
.