Brotli is a compression algorithm developed by Google, designed to provide efficient and fast compression of data. It is named after the Swiss bakery product, “brotli,” which means “small bread” in Swiss German.
Brotli compression offers a higher compression ratio compared to other popular compression algorithms, such as gzip and deflate. It achieves this by using a more advanced data compression technique based on a combination of the LZ77 algorithm and the Huffman coding method. This allows Brotli to achieve smaller compressed file sizes while maintaining the integrity and accuracy of the original data.
The Brotli compression algorithm is primarily used for compressing web content, such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and JSON files. Compressing these files reduces their size, resulting in faster data transfer and improved website loading times. Smaller file sizes also help reduce bandwidth consumption and improve overall website performance.
To compress files using Brotli, you can use the command-line tool called “brotli” or various programming libraries that support Brotli compression, such as the Python “brotli” library. The compression process involves taking an input file and generating a compressed output file with the “.br” extension.
For example, to compress a file named “example.txt” using the command-line tool, you can run the following command:
# brotli example.txt
This command will create a compressed file named “example.txt.br” in the same directory as the input file.
To decompress a Brotli-compressed file, you can use the same command-line tool or programming libraries that support Brotli decompression. The decompression process involves taking a compressed input file and generating the original uncompressed file.
For example, to decompress the “example.txt.br” file created earlier, you can use the following command:
# brotli -d example.txt.br
This command will generate the original uncompressed file named “example.txt” in the same directory as the compressed file.
brotli Command Examples
1. Compress a file, creating a compressed version next to the file:
# brotli file.ext
2. Decompress a file, creating an uncompressed version next to the file:
# brotli -d file.ext.br
3. Compress a file specifying the output filename:
# brotli file.ext -o compressed_file.ext.br
4. Decompress a Brotli file specifying the output filename:
# brotli -d compressed_file.ext.br -o file.ext
5. Specify the compression level. 1=Fastest (Worst), 11=Slowest (Best):
# brotli -q 11 file.ext -o compressed_file.ext.br
Summary
In summary, Brotli is a powerful compression algorithm developed by Google for efficiently compressing web content. It offers higher compression ratios, resulting in smaller file sizes and improved website performance. You can use the command-line tool or programming libraries to compress and decompress files using Brotli compression.