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unsigned-varint

unsigned varint in use in multiformat specs

This unsigned varint (VARiable INTeger) format is for the use in all the multiformats.

Format

Our unsigned varint is an MSB based unsigned varint.

Spec

The encoding is:

unsigned integers are serialized 7 bits at a time, starting with the least significant bits
the most significant bit (msb) in each output byte indicates if there is a continuation byte (msb = 1)
there are no signed integers
integers are minimally encoded

Examples:

1 (0x01)        => 00000001 (0x01)
127 (0x7f)      => 01111111 (0x7f)
128 (0x80)      => 10000000 00000001 (0x8001)
255 (0xff)      => 11111111 00000001 (0xff01)
300 (0x012c)    => 10101100 00000010 (0xac02)
16384 (0x4000)  => 10000000 10000000 00000001 (0x808001)

byte   # |              0 |            1   |          2     |
bit    # |c 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 |c 5 4 3 2 1 0 7 |c 4 3 2 1 0 7 6 |
         |----------------|----------------|----------------|
16384 => |1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 |1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 |0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 |

Code that generates this.

package main

// test program. we can use the go one.
import (
  "encoding/binary" // varint is here
  "fmt"
)

func main() {
  ints := []uint64{1, 127, 128, 255, 300, 16384}
  for _, i := range ints {
    buf := make([]byte, 10)
    n := binary.PutUvarint(buf, uint64(i))

    hexStr := fmt.Sprintf("%x", i)
    if len(hexStr)%2 == 1 {
      hexStr = "0" + hexStr
    }
    fmt.Print(i, " (0x"+hexStr+")\t=> ")
    for c := 0; c < n; c++ {
      fmt.Printf("%08b ", int(buf[c]))
    }
    fmt.Printf("(0x%x)\n", buf[:n])
  }
}

Practical maximum of 9 bytes (for security)

For security, to avoid memory attacks, we use a "practical max" of 9 bytes. Though there is no theoretical limit, and future specs can grow this number if it is truly necessary to have code or length values equal to or larger than 2^63.

For the forseeable future:

Implementations MUST restrict the size of the varint to a max of 9 bytes (63 bits).
A multiformat spec MAY explicitly declare a smaller maximum when using varints.
A multiformat spec MAY NOT explicitly declare a larger maximum when using varints without first changing this spec.

Main differences from Go Varint

This MSB-based unsigned varint is based on the varint of the Go standard library, which itself was based on the protocol buffers one.

However, we have two modifications:

Multiformats varint only supports unsigned integers, the Go varint supports signed (using zig-zag encoding).
Multiformats varints must be minimally encoded. That is, numbers must be encoded in the least number of bytes possible.

What do we mean by minimally encoded?

Multiformat varints must be encoded in as few bytes as possible. To illustrate the issue, take {0x81 0x00}. This is a valid golang varint encoding of 0x1. However, the minimal encoding of 0x1 is {0x1}.

Implementations

Maintainers

Captain: @jbenet.

Contribute

Contributions welcome. Please check out the issues.

Check out our contributing document for more information on how we work, and about contributing in general. Please be aware that all interactions related to multiformats are subject to the IPFS Code of Conduct.

Small note: If editing the README, please conform to the standard-readme specification.