---
name: "Compress::LZ4"
section: "3pm"
platform: "linux"
package: "libcompress-lz4-perl"
version: "0.25+ds-2+b4"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/Compress::LZ4"
---

# Compress::LZ4(3pm)

Perl interface to the LZ4 (de)compressor

## NAME

Compress::LZ4 - Perl interface to the LZ4 (de)compressor

## SYNOPSIS

```
    use Compress::LZ4;
    my $compressed = compress($bytes);
    my $decompressed = decompress($compressed);
```

## DESCRIPTION

The `"Compress::LZ4"` module provides an interface to the LZ4 (de)compressor.

## FUNCTIONS

### compress

```
    $compressed = compress($bytes [, $level])
```

Compresses the given buffer and returns the resulting bytes. The input buffer can be either a scalar or a scalar reference. The default acceleration level (1) can be changed, with each additional level providing ~3% increase in speed; the compression level will be negatively affected.

### compress\_hc

```
    $compressed = compress_hc($bytes [, $level])
```

A higher-compression, but slower, version of `"compress"`. The default compression level (9) can be changed if an optional value (0-16) is given.

### decompress

### uncompress

```
    $bytes = decompress($compressed)
```

Decompresses the given buffer and returns the resulting bytes. The input buffer can be either a scalar or a scalar reference.

On error (in case of corrupted data) undef is returned.

## COMPATIBILITY

This library does not produce output that is compatible with the official frame format. Because LZ4 did not define a container format until long after it was released, many bindings, including this one, prepend the original data size to the compressed data as a little-endian 4-byte integer.

If you are dealing with raw data from an external source that does not format the data this way, you need to use the following functions:

### lz4\_compress

### lz4\_compress\_hc

Same as `"compress"`/`"compress_hc"` but does not add the length header.

### lz4\_decompress

### lz4\_uncompress

```
    $bytes = decompress($compressed, $original_data_size)
```

Same as `"decompress"`/`"uncompress"` but also requires the original data size to be given.

## PERFORMANCE

This distribution contains a benchmarking script which compares several modules available on CPAN. These are the results on a MacBook 2.6GHz Core i5 (64-bit) with Perl 5.24.1:

```
    Compressible data (10 KiB) - compression
    ----------------------------------------
    Compress::LZ4::compress 8   670690/s  6550 MiB/s  1.152%
    Compress::LZ4::compress     649176/s  6340 MiB/s  1.152%
    Compress::Snappy::compress  367492/s  3589 MiB/s  5.332%
    Compress::LZF::compress     127765/s  1248 MiB/s  1.865%
    Compress::LZ4::compress_hc   84620/s   826 MiB/s  1.152%
    Compress::Zlib::compress     15514/s   152 MiB/s  1.201%
    Compress::Bzip2::compress      246/s     2 MiB/s  2.070%
    Compressible data (10 KiB) - decompression
    ------------------------------------------
    Compress::LZF::decompress     1262620/s  12330 MiB/s
    Compress::LZ4::decompress      819200/s   8000 MiB/s
    Compress::Snappy::decompress   619934/s   6054 MiB/s
    Compress::Zlib::uncompress      65163/s    636 MiB/s
    Compress::Bzip2::decompress     12679/s    124 MiB/s
    Uncompressible data (10 KiB) - compression
    ------------------------------------------
    Compress::LZ4::compress 8   2102098/s  20528 MiB/s  109.231%
    Compress::LZ4::compress     1854792/s  18113 MiB/s  109.231%
    Compress::Snappy::compress  1619124/s  15812 MiB/s  104.615%
    Compress::LZF::compress     1349269/s  13176 MiB/s  101.538%
    Compress::LZ4::compress_hc    96376/s    941 MiB/s  109.231%
    Compress::Zlib::compress      66370/s    648 MiB/s  112.308%
    Compress::Bzip2::compress     54098/s    528 MiB/s  201.538%
    Uncompressible data (10 KiB) - decompression
    --------------------------------------------
    Compress::LZF::decompress     5004566/s  48873 MiB/s
    Compress::LZ4::decompress     4915199/s  48000 MiB/s
    Compress::Snappy::decompress  4906438/s  47914 MiB/s
    Compress::Zlib::uncompress     355071/s   3467 MiB/s
    Compress::Bzip2::decompress    175812/s   1717 MiB/s
```

## SEE ALSO

\<http://lz4.org/\>

## REQUESTS AND BUGS

Please report any bugs or feature requests to \<http://rt.cpan.org/Public/Bug/Report.html?Queue=Compress-LZ4\>.  I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

## SUPPORT

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

```
    perldoc Compress::LZ4
```

You can also look for information at:

- •

  GitHub Source Repository

  \<https://github.com/gray/compress-lz4\>

- •

  AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation

  \<http://annocpan.org/dist/Compress-LZ4\>

- •

  CPAN Ratings

  \<http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/Compress-LZ4\>

- •

  RT: CPAN's request tracker

  \<http://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=Compress-LZ4\>

- •

  Search CPAN

  \<http://search.cpan.org/dist/Compress-LZ4/\>

## COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

Copyright (C) 2012-2017 gray \<gray at cpan.org\>, all rights reserved.

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

## AUTHOR

gray, \<gray at cpan.org\>