detools 0.22.0

Binary delta encoding tools.

About

Binary delta encoding in Python 3 and C.

Based on http://www.daemonology.net/bsdiff/, with the following differences:

• BZ2, LZMA or CRLE compression.

• Linear patch file access pattern to allow streaming and less RAM usage.

• SA-IS instead of qsufsort.

• Variable length size fields.

• Incremental apply patch implemented in C, suitable for memory constrained embedded devices.

• Optional experimental data format aware algorithm for potentially smaller patches. I don’t recommend anyone to use this functionality as the gain is small in relation to memory usage and code complexity!

  There is a risk this functionality uses patent https://patents.google.com/patent/EP1988455B1/en. Anyway, this patent expires in August 2019 as I understand it.

  Supported data formats:

  • ARM Cortex-M4

  • AArch64

Planned functionality:

• in-place patch type support in C.

Ideas:

• Make the in-place patch type resumable.

Project homepage: https://github.com/eerimoq/detools

Documentation: http://detools.readthedocs.org/en/latest

Installation

pip install detools

Statistics

“LZMA reference” is the target binary compressed with lzma --best.

All sizes are in bytes.

Update	To size	LZMA reference	LZMA compression	CRLE compression
		Size	Ratio	Patch size	Ratio	Patch size	Ratio
upy v1.9.4 -> v1.10	615388	367500	59.8 %	71802	11.7 %	161403	26.2 %
python 3.5 -> 3.6	4568920	1402663	30.7 %	1451510	31.8 %	-	-
foo old -> new	2780	1934	69.5 %	126	4.5 %	189	6.8 %
upy 1f5d945af (1)	319988	183976	57.5 %	8208	2.6 %	-	-
upy 1f5d945af (2)	319988	183976	57.5 %	5039	1.6 %	-	-
upy 1f5d945af (3)	319988	183976	57.5 %	2994	0.9 %	-	-
python3 (4)	3498472	912539	26.1 %	88485	2.5 %	-	-
python3 (5)	3498472	912539	26.1 %	47203	1.3 %	-	-

Two builds of MicroPython for PYBv1.1. The from-file is built from commit 1f5d945af, while the to-file is built from the same commit, but with line 209 in vm.c deleted.

(1): Default settings.

detools create_patch \
    tests/files/pybv11/1f5d945af/firmware1.bin \
    tests/files/pybv11/1f5d945af-dirty/firmware1.bin \
    tests/files/pybv11/1f5d945af--1f5d945af-dirty.patch

(2): ARM Cortex-M4 aware algorithm.

detools create_patch \
    --data-format arm-cortex-m4 \
    tests/files/pybv11/1f5d945af/firmware1.bin \
    tests/files/pybv11/1f5d945af-dirty/firmware1.bin \
    tests/files/pybv11/1f5d945af--1f5d945af-dirty-arm-cortex-m4.patch

(3): ARM Cortex-M4 aware algorithm with data segments to efficiently compress function and data pointers.

detools create_patch \
    --data-format arm-cortex-m4 \
    --from-data-offsets 0x36f7c-0x4e1f0 \
    --from-code-addresses 0x8020000-0x8056deb \
    --from-data-addresses 0x8056f7c-0x806e1f0 \
    --to-data-offsets 0x36f54-0x4e1d4 \
    --to-code-addresses 0x8020000-0x8056dc3 \
    --to-data-addresses 0x8056f54-0x806e1d4 \
    tests/files/pybv11/1f5d945af/firmware1.bin \
    tests/files/pybv11/1f5d945af-dirty/firmware1.bin \
    tests/files/pybv11/1f5d945af--1f5d945af-dirty-arm-cortex-m4-data-sections.patch

Python 3 built for a 64-bit ARM processor.

(4): Default settings.

detools create_patch \
    tests/files/python3/aarch64/3.7.2-3/libpython3.7m.so.1.0 \
    tests/files/python3/aarch64/3.7.3-1/libpython3.7m.so.1.0 \
    tests/files/python3/aarch64/3.7.2-3--3.7.3-1.patch

(5): AArch64 aware algorithm.

detools create_patch \
    --data-format aarch64 \
    tests/files/python3/aarch64/3.7.2-3/libpython3.7m.so.1.0 \
    tests/files/python3/aarch64/3.7.3-1/libpython3.7m.so.1.0 \
    tests/files/python3/aarch64/3.7.2-3--3.7.3-1-aarch64.patch

Example usage

Command line tool

The create patch subcommand

Create a patch foo.patch from tests/files/foo/old to tests/files/foo/new.

$ detools create_patch tests/files/foo/old tests/files/foo/new foo.patch
$ ls -l foo.patch
-rw-rw-r-- 1 erik erik 127 Mar  1 19:18 foo.patch

Create the same patch as above, but without compression.

$ detools create_patch --compression none \
      tests/files/foo/old tests/files/foo/new foo-no-compression.patch
$ ls -l foo-no-compression.patch
-rw-rw-r-- 1 erik erik 2792 Mar  1 19:18 foo-no-compression.patch

Create an in-place patch foo-in-place.patch.

$ detools create_patch --type in-place --memory-size 3000 --segment-size 500 \
      tests/files/foo/old tests/files/foo/new foo-in-place.patch
$ ls -l foo-in-place.patch
-rw-rw-r-- 1 erik erik 672 Mar 16 08:49 foo-in-place.patch

The apply patch subcommand

Apply the patch foo.patch to tests/files/foo/old to create foo.new.

$ detools apply_patch tests/files/foo/old foo.patch foo.new
$ ls -l foo.new
-rw-rw-r-- 1 erik erik 2780 Mar  1 19:18 foo.new

The in-place apply patch subcommand

Apply the in-place patch foo-in-place.patch to foo.mem.

$ cp tests/files/foo/old foo.mem
$ detools apply_patch_in_place foo.mem foo-in-place.patch
$ ls -l foo.mem
-rwxrwxr-x 1 erik erik 2780 Mar 16 08:51 foo.mem

The patch info subcommand

Print information about the patch foo.patch.

$ detools patch_info foo.patch
Type:               normal
Patch size:         127 bytes
To size:            2.71 KiB
Patch/to ratio:     4.6 % (lower is better)
Diff/extra ratio:   9828.6 % (higher is better)
Size/data ratio:    0.3 % (lower is better)
Compression:        lzma

Number of diffs:    2
Total diff size:    2.69 KiB
Average diff size:  1.34 KiB
Median diff size:   1.34 KiB

Number of extras:   2
Total extra size:   28 bytes
Average extra size: 14 bytes
Median extra size:  14 bytes

Contributing

1. Fork the repository.

2. Install prerequisites.

   pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Implement the new feature or bug fix.

4. Implement test case(s) to ensure that future changes do not break legacy.

5. Run the tests.

   make test

6. Create a pull request.