From fbedceb10066430b925cf43fbf926e8abb9e2359 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bob Pearson Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:02:22 -0700 Subject: crc32: move long comment about crc32 fundamentals to Documentation/ Move a long comment from lib/crc32.c to Documentation/crc32.txt where it will more likely get read. Edited the resulting document to add an explanation of the slicing-by-n algorithm. [djwong@us.ibm.com: minor changelog tweaks] [akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix typo, per George] Signed-off-by: George Spelvin Signed-off-by: Bob Pearson Signed-off-by: Darrick J. Wong Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds --- lib/crc32.c | 129 +----------------------------------------------------------- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 127 deletions(-) (limited to 'lib/crc32.c') diff --git a/lib/crc32.c b/lib/crc32.c index ffea0c99a1f..c3ce94a06db 100644 --- a/lib/crc32.c +++ b/lib/crc32.c @@ -20,6 +20,8 @@ * Version 2. See the file COPYING for more details. */ +/* see: Documentation/crc32.txt for a description of algorithms */ + #include #include #include @@ -209,133 +211,6 @@ u32 __pure crc32_be(u32 crc, unsigned char const *p, size_t len) EXPORT_SYMBOL(crc32_le); EXPORT_SYMBOL(crc32_be); -/* - * A brief CRC tutorial. - * - * A CRC is a long-division remainder. You add the CRC to the message, - * and the whole thing (message+CRC) is a multiple of the given - * CRC polynomial. To check the CRC, you can either check that the - * CRC matches the recomputed value, *or* you can check that the - * remainder computed on the message+CRC is 0. This latter approach - * is used by a lot of hardware implementations, and is why so many - * protocols put the end-of-frame flag after the CRC. - * - * It's actually the same long division you learned in school, except that - * - We're working in binary, so the digits are only 0 and 1, and - * - When dividing polynomials, there are no carries. Rather than add and - * subtract, we just xor. Thus, we tend to get a bit sloppy about - * the difference between adding and subtracting. - * - * A 32-bit CRC polynomial is actually 33 bits long. But since it's - * 33 bits long, bit 32 is always going to be set, so usually the CRC - * is written in hex with the most significant bit omitted. (If you're - * familiar with the IEEE 754 floating-point format, it's the same idea.) - * - * Note that a CRC is computed over a string of *bits*, so you have - * to decide on the endianness of the bits within each byte. To get - * the best error-detecting properties, this should correspond to the - * order they're actually sent. For example, standard RS-232 serial is - * little-endian; the most significant bit (sometimes used for parity) - * is sent last. And when appending a CRC word to a message, you should - * do it in the right order, matching the endianness. - * - * Just like with ordinary division, the remainder is always smaller than - * the divisor (the CRC polynomial) you're dividing by. Each step of the - * division, you take one more digit (bit) of the dividend and append it - * to the current remainder. Then you figure out the appropriate multiple - * of the divisor to subtract to being the remainder back into range. - * In binary, it's easy - it has to be either 0 or 1, and to make the - * XOR cancel, it's just a copy of bit 32 of the remainder. - * - * When computing a CRC, we don't care about the quotient, so we can - * throw the quotient bit away, but subtract the appropriate multiple of - * the polynomial from the remainder and we're back to where we started, - * ready to process the next bit. - * - * A big-endian CRC written this way would be coded like: - * for (i = 0; i < input_bits; i++) { - * multiple = remainder & 0x80000000 ? CRCPOLY : 0; - * remainder = (remainder << 1 | next_input_bit()) ^ multiple; - * } - * Notice how, to get at bit 32 of the shifted remainder, we look - * at bit 31 of the remainder *before* shifting it. - * - * But also notice how the next_input_bit() bits we're shifting into - * the remainder don't actually affect any decision-making until - * 32 bits later. Thus, the first 32 cycles of this are pretty boring. - * Also, to add the CRC to a message, we need a 32-bit-long hole for it at - * the end, so we have to add 32 extra cycles shifting in zeros at the - * end of every message, - * - * So the standard trick is to rearrage merging in the next_input_bit() - * until the moment it's needed. Then the first 32 cycles can be precomputed, - * and merging in the final 32 zero bits to make room for the CRC can be - * skipped entirely. - * This changes the code to: - * for (i = 0; i < input_bits; i++) { - * remainder ^= next_input_bit() << 31; - * multiple = (remainder & 0x80000000) ? CRCPOLY : 0; - * remainder = (remainder << 1) ^ multiple; - * } - * With this optimization, the little-endian code is simpler: - * for (i = 0; i < input_bits; i++) { - * remainder ^= next_input_bit(); - * multiple = (remainder & 1) ? CRCPOLY : 0; - * remainder = (remainder >> 1) ^ multiple; - * } - * - * Note that the other details of endianness have been hidden in CRCPOLY - * (which must be bit-reversed) and next_input_bit(). - * - * However, as long as next_input_bit is returning the bits in a sensible - * order, we can actually do the merging 8 or more bits at a time rather - * than one bit at a time: - * for (i = 0; i < input_bytes; i++) { - * remainder ^= next_input_byte() << 24; - * for (j = 0; j < 8; j++) { - * multiple = (remainder & 0x80000000) ? CRCPOLY : 0; - * remainder = (remainder << 1) ^ multiple; - * } - * } - * Or in little-endian: - * for (i = 0; i < input_bytes; i++) { - * remainder ^= next_input_byte(); - * for (j = 0; j < 8; j++) { - * multiple = (remainder & 1) ? CRCPOLY : 0; - * remainder = (remainder << 1) ^ multiple; - * } - * } - * If the input is a multiple of 32 bits, you can even XOR in a 32-bit - * word at a time and increase the inner loop count to 32. - * - * You can also mix and match the two loop styles, for example doing the - * bulk of a message byte-at-a-time and adding bit-at-a-time processing - * for any fractional bytes at the end. - * - * The only remaining optimization is to the byte-at-a-time table method. - * Here, rather than just shifting one bit of the remainder to decide - * in the correct multiple to subtract, we can shift a byte at a time. - * This produces a 40-bit (rather than a 33-bit) intermediate remainder, - * but again the multiple of the polynomial to subtract depends only on - * the high bits, the high 8 bits in this case. - * - * The multiple we need in that case is the low 32 bits of a 40-bit - * value whose high 8 bits are given, and which is a multiple of the - * generator polynomial. This is simply the CRC-32 of the given - * one-byte message. - * - * Two more details: normally, appending zero bits to a message which - * is already a multiple of a polynomial produces a larger multiple of that - * polynomial. To enable a CRC to detect this condition, it's common to - * invert the CRC before appending it. This makes the remainder of the - * message+crc come out not as zero, but some fixed non-zero value. - * - * The same problem applies to zero bits prepended to the message, and - * a similar solution is used. Instead of starting with a remainder of - * 0, an initial remainder of all ones is used. As long as you start - * the same way on decoding, it doesn't make a difference. - */ - #ifdef UNITTEST #include -- cgit v1.2.3-18-g5258