VCDIFF


VCDIFF is a format and an algorithm for delta encoding, described in IETF's RFC 3284. The algorithm is based on Jon Bentley and Douglas McIlroy's paper "Data Compression Using Long Common Strings" written in 1999. VCDIFF is used as one of the delta encoding algorithms in "Delta encoding in HTTP" and is employed in Google's Shared Dictionary Compression Over HTTP technology used in their Chrome browser.

Delta instructions

VCDIFF has 3 delta instructions. ADD, COPY, and RUN. ADD adds a new sequence, COPY copies from an old sequence, and RUN adds repeated data.

Implementations

implementations include xdelta and open-vcdiff.