Snappy

File Format
Name	Snappy
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Compression Snappy
Extension(s)	.sz
MIME Type(s)	application/x-snappy-framed
Released	2011

Snappy is a compression format and program library to implement it, introduced by Google. It is designed for very fast compression and decompression.

Snappy is defined as a raw stream format, plus a higher-level "framing format" that can be used as a file format.

Apple used a variant of Snappy (not quite compatible with its specs) in the IWA serialization format used as part of the iWork format used in Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.

Identification

The framing format begins with bytes 0xff 0x06 0x00 0x00 's' 'N' 'a' 'P' 'p' 'Y'.

Links

• Google's Snappy page (with code downloads and links to library interfaces for various programming languages)
• Format description
• Framing/encapsulation format
• Wikipedia: Snappy (compression)