3.1.8.1 Abstract Data Model

The shared state necessary to support the transmission and reception of compressed data between a client and server requires a history buffer and a current offset into the history buffer (HistoryOffset). The size of the history buffer depends on the compression type being used (8 kilobytes for RDP 4.0 and 64 kilobytes for RDP 5.0). Any data that is being compressed MUST be smaller in size than the history buffer. The HistoryOffset MUST start initialized to zero while the history buffer MUST be filled with zeros. After it has been initialized, the entire history buffer is immediately regarded as valid.

When compressing data, the sender MUST first check that the uncompressed data can be inserted into the history buffer at the position in the history buffer given by the HistoryOffset. If the data will not fit into the history buffer (the sum of the HistoryOffset and the size of the uncompressed data exceeds the size of the history buffer), the HistoryOffset MUST be reset to the start of the history buffer (offset 0). If the data will fit into the history buffer, the sender endpoint inserts the uncompressed data at the position in the history buffer given by the HistoryOffset, and then advances the HistoryOffset by the amount of data added.

As the receiver endpoint decompresses the data, it inserts the decompressed data at the position in the history buffer given by its local copy HistoryOffset. If a reset occurs, the sender endpoint MUST notify the target receiver so it can reset its local state. In this way, the sender and receiver endpoints maintain an exact replica of the history buffer and HistoryOffset.