---
name: "mtbl_info"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "mtbl-bin"
version: "1.6.1-1+b1"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/mtbl_info"
---

# mtbl\_info(1)

display information about an MTBL file

## NAME

mtbl\_info - display information about an MTBL file

## SYNOPSIS

**mtbl\_info** *FILE* \[*FILE*\]...

## DESCRIPTION

[**mtbl\_info**(1)](/mtbl_info/1.md) displays the following information about the MTBL files specified on the command line.

*file name* — the name of the MTBL file.

*file size* — the total size of the MTBL file, in bytes.

*index bytes* — the total number of bytes and proportion of the total file size consumed by the index.

*data block bytes* — the total number of bytes and proportion of the total file size consumed by data blocks.

*data block size* — the maximum size of an uncompressed data block.

*data block count* — the total number of data blocks.

*entry count* — the total number of key-value entries.

*key bytes* — the total number of bytes that all keys in the file would occupy if stored end-to-end in a byte array with no delimiters.

*value bytes* — the total number of bytes that all values in the file would occupy if stored end-to-end in a byte array with no delimiters.

*compression algorithm* — the algorithm used to compress data blocks. Possible values are "none", "snappy", "zlib", "lz4", "lz4hc", and "zstd".

*compactness* — a rough metric comparing the total number of bytes in the key-value entries with the total size of the MTBL file. It is calculated as (file size) / (key bytes + value bytes), and thus takes into account the gains of data block compression and prefix key compression against the overhead of the index, metadata, and data block offset arrays.