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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/AVRO-27?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=12708244#action_12708244
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Doug Cutting commented on AVRO-27:
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bq. I'm imagining a situation where you have part of an Avro Object container
file minus the header/footer metablock because of data loss or subscribing to a
data stream in "real-time" midstream.
But metainfo is required to make sense of the stream. You need its schema,
codec, etc. Getting the sync marker doesn't seem a huge burden on top of that,
unless you're figuring you'd skip to the next metadata flush before you try to
make sense of the stream? How critical is this streaming-without-metadata use
case? If it becomes an important use case, we might define a
streaming-specific container, or use RTSP or somesuch, rather than using the
existing container file format at all.
Not that this isn't an interesting area, but I'd much more interested in, e.g.,
gzip and lzf compression codecs for Avro's file format, or Avro InputFormat and
OutputFormat's for mapreduce, or perhaps a version of Dumbo that uses the Pipes
protocol to more efficiently get complex Avro data in and out of Python
programs, etc.
> Consistent Overhead Byte Stuffing (COBS) encoded block format for Object
> Container Files
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Key: AVRO-27
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/AVRO-27
> Project: Avro
> Issue Type: New Feature
> Components: spec
> Reporter: Matt Massie
> Attachments: COBSCodec.java
>
>
> Object Container Files could use a 1 byte sync marker (set to zero) using
> zig-zag and COBS encoding within blocks to efficiently escape zeros from the
> record data.
> h4. Zig-Zag encoding
> With zig-zag encoding only the value of 0 (zero) gets encoded into a value
> with a single zero byte. This property means that we can write any non-zero
> zig-zag long inside a block within concern for creating an unintentional sync
> byte.
> h4. COBS encoding
> We'll use COBS encoding to ensure that all zeros are escaped inside the block
> payload. You can read http://www.sigcomm.org/sigcomm97/papers/p062.pdf for
> the details about COBS encoding.
> h1. Block Format
> All blocks start and end with a sync byte (set to zero) with a
> type-length-value format internally as follows:
> || name || format || length in bytes || value || meaning ||
> | sync | byte | 1 | always 0 (zero) | The sync byte serves as a clear marker
> for the start of a block |
> | type | zig-zag long | variable | must be non-zero | The type field
> expresses whether the block is for _metadata_ or _normal_ data. |
> | length | zig-zag long | variable | must be non-zero | The length field
> expresses the number of bytes until the next record (including the cobs code
> and sync byte). Useful for skipping ahead to the next block. |
> | cobs_code | byte | 1 | see COBS code table below | Used in escaping zeros
> from the block payload |
> | payload | cobs-encoded | Greater than or equal to zero | all non-zero bytes
> | The payload of the block |
> | sync | byte | 1 | always 0 (zero) | The sync byte serves as a clear marker
> for the end of the block |
> h2. COBS code table
> || Code || Followed by || Meaning |
> | 0x00 | (not applicable) | (not allowed ) |
> | 0x01 | nothing | Empty payload followed by the closing sync byte |
> | 0x02 | one data byte | The single data byte, followed by the closing sync
> byte |
> | 0x03 | two data bytes | The pair of data bytes, followed by the closing
> sync byte |
> | 0x04 | three data bytes | The three data bytes, followed by the closing
> sync byte |
> | n | (n-1) data bytes | The (n-1) data bytes, followed by the closing sync
> byte |
> | 0xFD | 252 data bytes | The 252 data bytes, followed by the closing sync
> byte |
> | 0xFE | 253 data bytes | The 253 data bytes, followed by the closing sync
> byte |
> | 0xFF | 254 data bytes | The 254 data bytes *not* followed by a zero. |
> (taken from http://www.sigcomm.org/sigcomm97/papers/p062.pdf)
> h1. Encoding
> Only the block writer needs to perform byte-by-byte processing to encode the
> block. The overhead for COBS encoding is very small in terms of the
> in-memory state required.
> h1. Decoding
> Block readers are not required to do as much byte-by-byte processing as a
> writer. The reader could (for example) find a _metadata_ block by doing the
> following:
> # Search for a zero byte in the file which marks the start of a record
> # Read and zig-zag decode the _type_ of the block
> #* If the block is _normal_ data, read the _length_, seek ahead to the next
> block and goto step #2 again
> #* If the block is a _metadata_ block, cobs decode the data
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