Data IO (Python functions)

A TFRecords file represents a sequence of (binary) strings. The format is not random access, so it is suitable for streaming large amounts of data but not suitable if fast sharding or other non-sequential access is desired.

• tf.python_io.TFRecordWriter
• tf.python_io.tf_record_iterator
• tf.python_io.TFRecordCompressionType
• tf.python_io.TFRecordOptions

TFRecords Format Details

A TFRecords file contains a sequence of strings with CRC32C (32-bit CRC using the Castagnoli polynomial) hashes. Each record has the format

uint64 length
uint32 masked_crc32_of_length
byte   data[length]
uint32 masked_crc32_of_data

and the records are concatenated together to produce the file. CRCs are described here, and the mask of a CRC is

masked_crc = ((crc >> 15) | (crc << 17)) + 0xa282ead8ul