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The C implementation now supports output seeking. Also expand the API
section a bit, and reorganize things to put the example on top.
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oconnor663 committed Mar 25, 2020
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This is the C implementation of BLAKE3. The public API consists of one
struct and five functions in [`blake3.h`](blake3.h):

- **`typedef struct {...} blake3_hasher`** An incremental BLAKE3 hashing
state, which can accept any number of updates.
- **`blake3_hasher_init(...)`** Initialize a `blake3_hasher` in the
default hashing mode.
- **`blake3_hasher_init_keyed(...)`** Initialize a `blake3_hasher` in
the keyed hashing mode, which accepts a 256-bit key.
- **`blake3_hasher_init_derive_key(...)`** Initialize a `blake3_hasher`
in the key derivation mode, which accepts a context string of any
length. In this mode, the key material is given as input after
initialization. The context string should be hardcoded, globally
unique, and application-specific. A good default format for such
strings is `"[application] [commit timestamp] [purpose]"`, e.g.,
`"example.com 2019-12-25 16:18:03 session tokens v1"`.
- **`blake3_hasher_update(...)`** Add input to the hasher. This can be
called any number of times.
- **`blake3_hasher_finalize(...)`** Finalize the hasher and emit an
output of any length. This does not modify the hasher itself. It is
possible to finalize again after adding more input.

## Example

Here's an example program that hashes bytes from standard input and
prints the result:
The official C implementation of BLAKE3.

# Example

An example program that hashes bytes from standard input and prints the
result:

```c
#include "blake3.h"
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -63,15 +43,103 @@ gcc -O3 -o example example.c blake3.c blake3_dispatch.c blake3_portable.c \
blake3_sse41_x86-64_unix.S blake3_avx2_x86-64_unix.S blake3_avx512_x86-64_unix.S
```

## Building
# API

## The Struct

```c
typedef struct {
// private fields
} blake3_hasher;
```

An incremental BLAKE3 hashing state, which can accept any number of
updates. This implementation doesn't allocate any heap memory, but
`sizeof(blake3_hasher)` itself is relatively large, currently 1912 bytes
on x86-64. This size can be reduced by restricting the maximum input
length, as described in Section 5.4 of [the BLAKE3
spec](https://github.com/BLAKE3-team/BLAKE3-specs/blob/master/blake3.pdf),
but this implementation doesn't currently support that strategy.

## Common API Functions

```c
void blake3_hasher_init(
blake3_hasher *self);
```
Initialize a `blake3_hasher` in the default hashing mode.
The Makefile included in this implementation is for testing. It's
expected that callers will have their own build systems. This section
describes the compilation steps that build systems (or folks compiling
by hand) should take. Note that these steps may change in future
versions.
```c
void blake3_hasher_update(
blake3_hasher *self,
const void *input,
size_t input_len);
```

Add input to the hasher. This can be called any number of times.

```c
void blake3_hasher_finalize(
const blake3_hasher *self,
uint8_t *out,
size_t out_len);
```
### x86
Finalize the hasher and emit an output of any length. This doesn't
modify the hasher itself, and it's possible to finalize again after
adding more input. The constant `BLAKE3_OUT_LEN` provides the default
output length, 32 bytes.
## Less Common API Functions
```c
void blake3_hasher_init_keyed(
blake3_hasher *self,
const uint8_t key[BLAKE3_KEY_LEN]);
```

Initialize a `blake3_hasher` in the keyed hashing mode. The key must be
exactly 32 bytes.

```c
void blake3_hasher_init_derive_key(
blake3_hasher *self,
const char *context);
```
Initialize a `blake3_hasher` in the key derivation mode. Key material
should be given as input after initialization, using
`blake3_hasher_update`. `context` is a standard C string of any length,
and the terminating null byte is not included. The context string should
be hardcoded, globally unique, and application-specific. A good default
format for the context string is `"[application] [commit timestamp]
[purpose]"`, e.g., `"example.com 2019-12-25 16:18:03 session tokens
v1"`.
```c
void blake3_hasher_finalize_seek(
const blake3_hasher *self,
uint64_t seek,
uint8_t *out,
size_t out_len);
```

The same as `blake3_hasher_finalize`, but with an additional `seek`
parameter for the starting byte position in the output stream. To
efficiently stream a large output without allocating memory, call this
function in a loop, incrementing `seek` by the output length each time.

# Building

This implementation is just C files. It doesn't include a public-facing
build system. (The `Makefile` in this directory is only for testing.)
Instead, the intention is that you can include these C and assemly files
in whatever build system you're already using. This section describes
the commands your build system should execute, or which you can execute
by hand. Note that these steps may change in future versions.

## x86

Dynamic dispatch is enabled by default on x86. The implementation will
query the CPU at runtime to detect SIMD support, and it will use the
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -110,7 +178,9 @@ gcc -shared -O3 -o libblake3.so blake3.c blake3_dispatch.c blake3_portable.c \

Note above that building `blake3_avx512.c` requires both `-mavx512f` and
`-mavx512vl` under GCC and Clang, as shown above. Under MSVC, the single
`/arch:AVX512` flag is sufficient.
`/arch:AVX512` flag is sufficient. The MSVC equivalent of `-mavx2` is
`/arch:AVX2`. MSVC enables SSE4.1 by defaut, and it doesn't have a
corresponding flag.

If you want to omit SIMD code on x86, you need to explicitly disable
each instruction set. Here's an example of building a shared library on
Expand All @@ -121,7 +191,7 @@ gcc -shared -O3 -o libblake3.so -DBLAKE3_NO_SSE41 -DBLAKE3_NO_AVX2 -DBLAKE3_NO_A
blake3.c blake3_dispatch.c blake3_portable.c
```

### ARM NEON
## ARM NEON

The NEON implementation is not enabled by default on ARM, since not all
ARM targets support it. To enable it, set `BLAKE3_USE_NEON=1`. Here's an
Expand All @@ -144,7 +214,7 @@ in call to always_inline ‘vaddq_u32’: target specific option mismatch
...then you may need to add something like `-mfpu=neon-vfpv4
-mfloat-abi=hard`.

### Other Platforms
## Other Platforms

The portable implementation should work on most other architectures. For
example:
Expand All @@ -153,16 +223,12 @@ example:
gcc -shared -O3 -o libblake3.so blake3.c blake3_dispatch.c blake3_portable.c
```

## Differences from the Rust Implementation
# Differences from the Rust Implementation

The single-threaded Rust and C implementations use the same algorithms,
and their performance is the same if you use the assembly
implementations or if you compile the intrinsics-based implementations
with Clang. (Both Clang and rustc are LLVM-based.)

The C implementation does not currently support multi-threading. OpenMP
The C implementation doesn't currently support multi-threading. OpenMP
support or similar might be added in the future.

Both the C and Rust implementations support output of any length, but
only the Rust implementation provides an incremental (and seekable)
output reader. This might also be added in the future.

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