diff --git a/PORTING.md b/PORTING.md index c48522e3..208f6ee9 100644 --- a/PORTING.md +++ b/PORTING.md @@ -4,6 +4,38 @@ Porting applications to use zlib-ng Zlib-ng can be used/compiled in two different modes, that require some consideration by the application developer. +Changes from zlib affecting native and compat modes +--------------------------------------------------- +Zlib-ng is not as conservative with memory allocation as Zlib is. + +Where Zlib's inflate will allocate a lower amount of memory depending on +compression level and window size, zlib-ng will always allocate the maximum +amount of memory and possibly leave parts of it unused. +Zlib-ng's deflate will however allocate a lower amount of memory depending +on compression level and window size. + +Zlib-ng also allocates one "big" buffer instead of doing multiple smaller +allocations. This is faster, can lead to better cache locality and reduces +space lost to alignment padding. + +At the time of writing, by default zlib-ng allocates the following amounts +of memory on a 64-bit system (except on S390x that requires ~4KiB more): +- Deflate: 350.272 Bytes +- Inflate: 42.112 Bytes + +**Advantages:** +- All memory is allocated during DeflateInit or InflateInit functions, + leaving the actual deflate/inflate functions free from allocations. +- Zlib-ng can only fail from memory allocation errors during init. +- Time spent doing memory allocation systemcalls is all done during init, + allowing applications to do prepare this before doing latency-sensitive + deflate/inflate later. +- Can reduce wasted memory due to buffer alignment padding both by OS and zlib-ng. +- Potentially improved memory locality. + +**Disadvantages:** +- Zlib-ng allocates a little more memory than zlib does. + zlib-compat mode ---------------- Zlib-ng can be compiled in zlib-compat mode, suitable for zlib-replacement