gzip Compression — Binary Data Expansion with LZ77

Every gzip file, every zip archive, every PNG image, every HTTPS response with Content-Encoding: gzip — all of these use DEFLATE, which is LZ77 combined with Huffman coding. Lempel and Ziv published two papers in 1977 and 1978 that are among the most cited in information theory. The algorithms they described became the foundation of essentially all practical lossless compression for the next 50 years.

The key insight in LZ77 is that the best dictionary for compressing text is the text you have already seen. Instead of building a static dictionary from training data, the encoder and decoder both maintain a sliding window of recent output — they are always perfectly synchronised without transmitting the dictionary itself. This is why LZ compression is both efficient and streamable.

LZ77 — Sliding Window Compression

LZ77 maintains a sliding window of recently seen data (search buffer) and a lookahead buffer. For each position, it finds the longest match in the search buffer. The output is a triple: (offset, length, next_char). Offset is the distance back to the match; length is how many characters match; next_char is the literal following the match (or empty if at end).

The window size is a key parameter. Larger windows catch longer repetitions but increase search time and memory. In practice, DEFLATE uses 32KB maximum window. LZ77 is the core of all modern ZIP, gzip, and PNG compression.

LZ78 — Dictionary-Based Compression

LZ78 builds an explicit dictionary of phrases. Instead of a sliding window, the encoder maintains a growing table of previously seen substrings. Each token is (dictionary_index, new_char). The index refers to a previously added phrase; new_char extends it. The decoder builds the same dictionary as it reads tokens — no side-channel transmission needed.

The key difference from LZ77: LZ78 can refer to any past phrase, even very old ones, as long as they are in the dictionary. However, the dictionary has a fixed maximum size in practice. LZ78 is the basis for GIF (via LZW), TIFF, and Unix compress.

Practical implementations limit dictionary size (e.g., 12-bit indices = 4096 entries). When full, the dictionary is either frozen or reset.

Real-World Derivatives

DEFLATE (LZ77 + Huffman): Powers gzip, ZIP, PNG, HTTP compression (Content-Encoding: gzip). The dominant compression format on the internet.

LZW: LZ78 derivative. Used in GIF, old TIFF, Unix compress. Patents expired, now freely usable.

zstd (Zstandard): Modern Facebook LZ77 derivative. 3-5x faster than gzip with similar ratios. Used in Linux kernel, Facebook infrastructure, Hadoop.

Snappy: Google's LZ77 variant optimising for speed over ratio. Used in LevelDB, Cassandra, Hadoop.

LZ77 vs LZ78 — Key Differences and Trade-offs

Both algorithms belong to the same family, but they differ fundamentally in how they encode repetition. LZ77 stores references to a fixed-size sliding window; LZ78 stores references to an ever-growing dictionary of phrases. This leads to different strengths:

• LZ77 produces variable-length tokens depending on offset range, requiring entropy coding (Huffman) afterwards for efficiency.
• LZ78 tokens are fixed-length (dictionary index bit width), simplifying the output but limiting the dictionary size.
• LZ77 decompression is minimal overhead; LZ78 requires rebuilding the dictionary.
• LZ78 can match patterns across very long distances (as long as they entered the dictionary), while LZ77 is limited by window size.

In practice, LZ77 dominates (DEFLATE, zstd, brotli, LZMA). LZ78 appears in legacy GIF.

Compression in Practice: Choosing the Right Algorithm

Selecting between LZ variants depends on the data, constraints, and use case. Here's a pragmatic guide:

• Web delivery: Use Brotli (LZ77 + custom entropy) for text assets; gzip fallback.
• File archives: Use zstd for speed+ratio; LZMA for maximum ratio but slower.
• Databases (LSM trees): Use Snappy or LZ4 for per-block compression — low CPU overhead.
• Network compression (e.g., SSH): Use zlib (DEFLATE) for balanced compression.
• Image formats: PNG uses DEFLATE; GIF uses LZW; both are LZ-based.

When implementing custom compression: start with an LZ77 variant and add entropy coding (Huffman, arithmetic) if needed.

Frequently Asked Questions