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diff --git a/development/bsdiff/README b/development/bsdiff/README new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..8b4167b91e --- /dev/null +++ b/development/bsdiff/README @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@ +bsdiff and bspatch are tools for building and applying patches to binary +files. By using suffix sorting (specifically, Larsson and Sadakane's qsufsort) +and taking advantage of how executable files change, bsdiff routinely produces +binary patches 50-80% smaller than those produced by Xdelta, and 15% smaller +than those produced by .RTPatch (a $2750/seat commercial patch tool). + +These programs were originally named bdiff and bpatch, but the large number of +other programs using those names lead to confusion; I'm not sure if the "bs" +in refers to "binary software" (because bsdiff produces exceptionally small +patches for executable files) or "bytewise subtraction" (which is the key to +how well it performs). Feel free to offer other suggestions. + +bsdiff is quite memory-hungry. It requires max(17*n,9*n+m)+O(1) bytes of +memory, where n is the size of the old file and m is the size of the new +file. bspatch requires n+m+O(1) bytes. + +bsdiff runs in O((n+m) log n) time; on a 200MHz Pentium Pro, building a binary +patch for a 4MB file takes about 90 seconds. bspatch runs in O(n+m) time; on +the same machine, applying that patch takes about two seconds. + +Providing that off_t is defined properly, bsdiff and bspatch support files of +up to 2^61-1 = 2Ei-1 bytes. |