Few words about Microsoft interoperability initiative.

As you probably know, Microsoft released last month several thousands pages of documentation about office file format and Windows protocols.

It means numerous hundreds(thousands?) of functions/algorithms documentation and pseudo-code. But, are these pseudo-function right? It looks not.

While I was reading [MS-DRSR]: Directory Replication Service (DRS) Remote Protocol Specification, I was a bit curious to see the DecompressWin2k3() function (Thanks Aaron, Stefan , and Brendan).

This function is in fact the decompression algorithm called Xpress implemented for the first time in Windows XP and not Windows 2003 as say the name. Xpress algorithm works on 64kb chunks and is used in Windows hibernation file format, Windows Imaging Format (WIM) , Outlook, Exchange, and… LDAP replication service of Active Directory.

I’m quoting below, errors I found in the pseudo-code of DecompressWin2k3(). Here is the C implementation.

while (outputIndex < = outputSize) 
should be:
while (outputIndex < outputSize) 
    if (indicatorBit = 0) then
        indicatorBit := copy inputBuffer[inputIndex] as 32-bit integer in
        little-endian format 
        should be:
        indicator := copy inputBuffer[inputIndex] as 32-bit integer in
        little-endian format 
        inputIndex := inputIndex + 4
        indicatorBit := 32
    endif 

    indicatorBit := indicatorBit - 1 

//* check whether the bit specified by indicatorBit is set or not
//* set in indicator. For example, if indicatorBit has value 4
//* check whether the 4th bit of the value in indicator is set  

    if indicatorBit bit in indicator is not set then
        inputBuffer[inputIndex] := outputBuffer[outputIndex]
        should be:
        outputBuffer[outputIndex] := inputBuffer[inputIndex] 
        inputIndex := inputIndex + 1
        outputIndex := outputIndex + 1
    else
        length := copy inputBuffer[inputIndex] as 16-bit integer in
        little-endian format
        inputIndex := inputIndex + 2
        offset := length /8
        length := length mod 8 

        if (length = 7) then 

            if (nibbleIndex = 0) then
                nibbleIndex := inputIndex
                length := inputBuffer[inputIndex] mod 16
                inputIndex := inputIndex + 1
            else
                length := inputBuffer[inputIndex] / 16 
                should be:
                length := inputBuffer[nibbleIndex ] / 16 
                nibbleIndex := 0
            endif 

            if (length = 15) then 

                length := inputBuffer[inputIndex]
                inputIndex := inputIndex + 1 

                    if (length = 255) then
                        length := copy inputBuffer[inputIndex] as 16-bit integer in little-endian format
                        inputIndex := inputIndex + 2
                        length := length - (15 + 7)
                    endif
                length := length + 15
            endif 

            length := length + 7 

        endif 

    length := length + 3 

        while (not length = 0) 
        should be:
        while (length != 0) 
            outputBuffer[outputIndex] := outputBuffer[outputIndex - offset - 1]
            outputIndex := outputIndex + 1
            length := length - 1
        endwhile
    endif 

endwhile 

return