Needle Layout Format

This document describes the binary layout of the Needle structure as used in SeaweedFS storage, for all supported versions (v1, v2, v3).

A Needle represents a file or data blob stored in a volume file. The layout determines how the Needle is serialized to disk for efficient storage and retrieval.

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Common Field Sizes

Field	Size (bytes)
Cookie	4
NeedleId	8
Size	4
DataSize	4
Flags	1
NameSize	1
MimeSize	1
LastModified	5
Ttl	2
PairsSize	2
Checksum	4
Timestamp	8

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Needle Layouts by Version

Version 1

Offset	Field	Size (bytes)	Description
0	Cookie	4	Random number to mitigate brute force lookups
4	Id	8	Needle ID
12	Size	4	Length of Data
16	Data	N	File data (N = Size)
16+N	Checksum	4	CRC32 of Data
20+N	Padding	0-7	To align to 8 bytes

Version 2

Offset	Field	Size (bytes)	Description
0	Cookie	4	Random number
4	Id	8	Needle ID
12	Size	4	Total size of the following fields
16	DataSize	4	Length of Data (N)
20	Data	N	File data
20+N	Flags	1	Bit flags
21+N	NameSize	1 (opt)	Optional, if present
22+N	Name	M (opt)	Optional, if present (M = NameSize)
...	MimeSize	1 (opt)	Optional, if present
...	Mime	K (opt)	Optional, if present (K = MimeSize)
...	LastModified	5 (opt)	Optional, if present
...	Ttl	2 (opt)	Optional, if present
...	PairsSize	2 (opt)	Optional, if present
...	Pairs	P (opt)	Optional, if present (P = PairsSize)
...	Checksum	4	CRC32
...	Padding	0-7	To align to 8 bytes

Version 3

Offset	Field	Size (bytes)	Description
0	Cookie	4	Random number
4	Id	8	Needle ID
12	Size	4	Total size of the following fields
16	DataSize	4	Length of Data (N)
20	Data	N	File data
20+N	Flags	1	Bit flags
21+N	NameSize	1 (opt)	Optional, if present
22+N	Name	M (opt)	Optional, if present (M = NameSize)
...	MimeSize	1 (opt)	Optional, if present
...	Mime	K (opt)	Optional, if present (K = MimeSize)
...	LastModified	5 (opt)	Optional, if present
...	Ttl	2 (opt)	Optional, if present
...	PairsSize	2 (opt)	Optional, if present
...	Pairs	P (opt)	Optional, if present (P = PairsSize)
...	Checksum	4	CRC32
...	Timestamp	8	Append time in nanoseconds
...	Padding	0-7	To align to 8 bytes

• Offsets marked with ... depend on the presence and size of previous optional fields.
• Fields marked (opt) are optional and only present if the corresponding size or flag is non-zero.
• N = DataSize, M = NameSize, K = MimeSize, P = PairsSize.

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Field Explanations

• Cookie: 4 bytes, random value for security.
• Id: 8 bytes, unique identifier for the Needle.
• Size: 4 bytes, total size of the Needle data section (not including header, checksum, timestamp, or padding).
• DataSize: 4 bytes, length of the Data field.
• Data: File data (variable length).
• Flags: 1 byte, bit flags for Needle properties.
• NameSize/Name: 1 byte + variable, optional file name.
• MimeSize/Mime: 1 byte + variable, optional MIME type.
• LastModified: 5 bytes, optional last modified timestamp.
• Ttl: 2 bytes, optional time-to-live.
• PairsSize/Pairs: 2 bytes + variable, optional key-value pairs.
• Checksum: 4 bytes, CRC32 checksum of the Needle data.
• Timestamp: 8 bytes, append time (only in v3).
• Padding: 0-7 bytes, to align the total Needle size to 8 bytes.

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Version Comparison Table

Field	v1	v2	v3
Cookie	✔	✔	✔
Id	✔	✔	✔
Size	✔	✔	✔
DataSize		✔	✔
Data	✔	✔	✔
Flags		✔	✔
NameSize/Name		✔	✔
MimeSize/Mime		✔	✔
LastModified		✔	✔
Ttl		✔	✔
PairsSize/Pairs		✔	✔
Checksum	✔	✔	✔
Timestamp			✔
Padding	✔	✔	✔

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Flags Field Details

The Flags field (present in v2 and v3) is a bitmask that encodes several boolean properties of the Needle. Each bit has a specific meaning:

Bit Value	Name	Meaning
0x01	FlagIsCompressed	Data is compressed (isCompressed)
0x02	FlagHasName	Name field is present (NameSize/Name)
0x04	FlagHasMime	Mime field is present (MimeSize/Mime)
0x08	FlagHasLastModifiedDate	LastModified field is present
0x10	FlagHasTtl	Ttl field is present
0x20	FlagHasPairs	Pairs field is present (PairsSize/Pairs)
0x80	FlagIsChunkManifest	Data is a chunk manifest (for large files)

• If a flag is set, the corresponding field(s) will appear in the Needle layout at the appropriate position.
• The Flags field is always present in v2 and v3, immediately after the Data field.

Optional Fields

• Fields marked as optional in the layout tables are only present if the corresponding flag in the Flags field is set (except for Name/Mime/Pairs, which also depend on their size fields being non-zero).
• The order of optional fields is fixed and matches the order of their flags.

Special Notes

• isCompressed: If set, the Data field is compressed (typically using gzip). This is indicated by the lowest bit (0x01) in the Flags byte.
• isChunkManifest: If set, the Data field contains a manifest describing chunks of a large file, not raw file data.
• All multi-byte fields are stored in big-endian order.
• Padding is always added at the end to align the total Needle size to 8 bytes.
• N = DataSize, M = NameSize, K = MimeSize, P = PairsSize in the layout tables above.

For more details, see the implementation in the corresponding Go files in this directory.