bbpe is both an executable binary that can be run, and a library that can be used in Rust programs.

Installing the command-line executable

Assuming you have Rust/Cargo installed, run this command in a terminal:

cargo install bbpe

It will make the bbpe command available in your PATH if you've allowed the PATH to be modified when installing Rust. cargo uninstall bbpe uninstalls.

Adding `bbpe` library as a dependency

Run this command in a terminal, in your project's directory:

cargo add bbpe

To add it manually, edit your project's Cargo.toml file and add to the [dependencies] section:

bbpe = "0.6.3"

The bbpe library will be automatically available globally. Read the bbpe library documentation.

Back to the crate overview.

Readme

bbpe

Binary-aware byte pair encoding (BPE) toolkit for Rust. bbpe trains Hugging Face–compatible tokenizer.json assets directly from raw binaries or newline-delimited JSON (JSONL) text, making it easy to build tokenizers for firmware, malware, structured data dumps, or hybrid corpora.

Binary-first: Streams arbitrary bytes, honors null-delimited boundaries, and always exports true byte fallback Hugging Face models.
Configurable preprocessing: Deterministic ASCII/Unicode/null splitters or probabilistic boundary sampling to encourage multi-word merges.
JSONL ingestion: Point at file.jsonl[:field.path] (gzip optional) to train on textual corpora without pre-extracting files.
Streaming-friendly trainer: BinaryChunkStream, stream_jsonl_corpus, and Trainer::train_from_stream let you feed arbitrarily large corpora chunk-by-chunk, while the built-in pair-cache pruning keeps the merge frontier bounded in memory.
Hierarchical vocabularies: Train once at a large vocab, derive smaller siblings whose token IDs remain aligned.
Chunked training: Experimental chunk-train command allows ensemble-style training on arbitrarily large corpora.

Installation

# CLI + library
cargo install bbpe

# Add as a dependency (library only)
cargo add [email protected]

For library-only usage without the CLI feature:

bbpe = { version = "0.6", default-features = false }

Quick Start

Train on binaries

bbpe train firmware.bin --vocab-size 4096 --min-frequency 4 \
  --preprocessor null-delimited -o tokenizer.json

Train on JSONL text (gzip supported)

bbpe train \
  --jsonl corpus.jsonl:text \
  --jsonl docs.jsonl.gz:data.body \
  --vocab-size 8192 --min-frequency 2 \
  --preprocessor ascii-whitespace \
  --preprocessor-probability 0.75 \
  --preprocessor-seed 42 \
  --family-size 4096 --family-size 2048 \
  --family-template out/tokenizer-{size}.json \
  -o tokenizer-8192.json

Encode / Decode

bbpe encode -m tokenizer.json binary.bin --json > tokens.json
bbpe decode -m tokenizer.json --input tokens.txt --output restored.bin

CLI Reference

Every command accepts -q/--quiet and -v/--verbose for logging control. Paths can be repeated.

`train`

Build a tokenizer from binary files, directories, and/or JSONL specs.

bbpe train [FILES]... [--jsonl PATH:FIELD]... [OPTIONS]

Key options:

Flag	Description
`--jsonl PATH:FIELD`	Train from newline-delimited JSON. `FIELD` uses `dot.separated.keys`. Files ending in `.gz` are transparently decompressed. Repeatable.
`-o, --output PATH`	Output `tokenizer.json` (default `tokenizer.json`).
`--vocab-size SIZE`	Target vocabulary (default 32768). Must be ≥ 256 + special tokens.
`--min-frequency COUNT`	Minimum pair frequency for merges (default 4).
`--chunk-size BYTES`	Read binary inputs in chunks (default 8192, `0` = whole file).
`--special-token TOKEN`	Append custom special tokens (repeatable).
`--disable-reasoning-tokens`	Drop the optional reasoning/argument tokens (Category 4). Core tokens remain enabled.
`--preprocessor MODE`	`none`, `ascii-whitespace`, `unicode-whitespace`, or `null-delimited`.
`--preprocessor-probability P`	Probability `[0,1]` that each detected boundary is kept (default `1.0`). Set `< 1` to occasionally merge across whitespace/null runs.
`--preprocessor-seed SEED`	Seed RNG for probabilistic preprocessing.
`--whitespace-merges-require-letter`	When set, any merge that creates a token containing whitespace must also include at least one ASCII letter (pure whitespace runs still pass).
`--forbid-leading-whitespace-merges`	Forbids merges whose tokens start with ASCII whitespace unless the entire token is whitespace.
`--family-size SIZE`	Emit derived vocabularies after training (repeat flag).
`--family-template PATTERN`	Output template for derived models (supports `{size}`).
`--max-merge-iterations COUNT`	Hard merge ceiling (defaults to vocab budget).
`--allowed-length LEN`	Restrict merge lengths (repeat).
`--threads N`	Override Rayon worker count.
`--no-progress`	Disable spinner output (logging still shows start/end).
`--min-entropy BITS`, `--max-entropy BITS`	Filter sequences outside entropy window before training.

`chunk-train` (experimental)

Train chunk-wise vocabularies and combine them. Useful when full-corpus training would exceed memory.

bbpe chunk-train [FILES]... [OPTIONS]

Notable flags:

--chunk-size BYTES (required, default 32 MiB)
--combine-mode first|frequency|support|entropy
--duplicates count|unique
--output PATH, --report PATH, --no-report
--disable-reasoning-tokens
Same preprocessing / probability knobs as train. (Currently, JSONL ingestion is only available on the main train command.)

`encode`

bbpe encode -m tokenizer.json <FILES>... [--json] [--output PATH] [--skip-special-tokens]

`decode`

bbpe decode -m tokenizer.json [IDS]... [--input PATH] [--output PATH] [--skip-special-tokens]

`info`

bbpe info -m tokenizer.json [--json]

Special Token Layout & Verification

Every tokenizer now shares a deterministic layout:

Category 3 tokens <|start|>, <|end|>, <|pad|>, <|unk|>, <|cls|>, <|sep|>, <|mask|> are always IDs 0-6.
The raw byte alphabet (0x00–0xFF) fills IDs 7-262.
The 47 Category 4 reasoning tokens occupy the next block by default (disable them with --disable-reasoning-tokens or TrainerBuilder::reasoning_tokens_enabled(false)).
Any additional custom specials you pass via --special-token are appended after the reserved IDs, followed by the learned “real” vocabulary.

bbpe info -m tokenizer.json now prints the base, special, and total counts so you can confirm the embedding dimension (total) and ensure the optional reasoning tokens are toggled the way you expect.

From Python, you can double-check the Hugging Face view with uv (replace the path with your tokenizer):

uv run --with tokenizers python -c "from tokenizers import Tokenizer; tok = Tokenizer.from_file('artifacts/tokenizer.json'); specials = ['<|start|>','<|end|>','<|pad|>','<|unk|>','<|cls|>','<|sep|>','<|mask|>']; assert [tok.token_to_id(t) for t in specials] == list(range(len(specials))); print('total vocab =', tok.get_vocab_size(with_added_tokens=True))"

That script is the same check the CLI tests run: it ensures Hugging Face loads the tokenizer with the reserved IDs intact and reports the exact vocabulary/embedding size.

All exported tokenizer.json files now bundle a ByteLevel pre-tokenizer/decoder pair ahead of any optional whitespace/null splitter. This guarantees that non-ASCII code points and literal reasoning glyphs survive encode/decode in Hugging Face even when you rely on probabilistic preprocessing during training.

Preprocessing Modes

bbpe optionally splits inputs before merge counting:

ascii-whitespace – Splits on ASCII whitespace (space, \t, \r, \n, VT, FF).
unicode-whitespace – Uses char::is_whitespace, preserving Unicode separators (implemented with bstr).
null-delimited – Splits on contiguous 0x00 runs (great for binaries with C strings or padded records).
none – Raw byte stream.

Set --preprocessor-probability <P> (or TrainerConfig::builder().preprocessor_split_probability(P)) to randomly keep only a subset of boundaries. Example: P=0.8 keeps 80 % of whitespace splits while letting 20 % of tokens cross word boundaries, encouraging the model to learn multi-word merges. Provide --preprocessor-seed for reproducibility. When P < 1.0, Hugging Face exports retain only the ByteLevel stage so inference still consumes the raw byte stream that training observed, while deterministic runs (P = 1) append the configured whitespace/null splitter after the ByteLevel layer.

Enable --whitespace-merges-require-letter (or TrainerConfig::builder().require_letter_whitespace_merges(true)) to stop numeric/punctuation-only spans from merging with whitespace while still permitting true words (containing ASCII letters) to retain their surrounding spaces. Add --forbid-leading-whitespace-merges (or .forbid_leading_whitespace_merges(true)) when you want all learned tokens to begin with non-whitespace bytes, keeping boundary markers in their own tokens while still allowing internal whitespace.

Recommendation: for “WordPiece-but-with-multi-word” behavior, we’ve had good luck with --preprocessor ascii-whitespace, --preprocessor-probability 0.6–0.75, and --whitespace-merges-require-letter. This keeps token embeddings compact (no trailing spaces, no punctuation-only merges) while still allowing high-value phrases like “of the” or “## CHAPTER” to form. On very large corpora, start at the higher end of that range (∼0.7) so merge counts stay stable and RSS doesn’t spike, then experiment downward if you need more aggressive phrase compression.

When you stick with the defaults, bbpe now caps merge lengths at 16 bytes whenever the preprocessor is ascii-whitespace or unicode-whitespace, mirroring WordPiece-style subwords. Binary/no-preprocessor runs keep the original 32-byte ceiling. Override this at any time via repeated --allowed-length flags (or .allowed_token_lengths() in code) if you need longer tokens for a particular corpus.

JSONL Ingestion

Use --jsonl path.jsonl:field.path to read newline-delimited JSON alongside binary files. Examples:

--jsonl data.jsonl:text
--jsonl downloads/articles.jsonl.gz:payload.body

Field paths use dot notation; numeric array indices are allowed (choices.0.text). Empty lines are skipped, non-string fields error out. The reader accepts gzip-compressed inputs (.jsonl.gz).

Library equivalent:

use bbpe::{Trainer, TrainerConfig, TrainerArtifacts};
use bbpe::corpus::JsonlSpec;

let cfg = TrainerConfig::builder()
    .target_vocab_size(8192)
    .min_frequency(2)
    .preprocessor_split_probability(0.7)
    .preprocessor_seed(Some(1337))
    .build()?;
let trainer = Trainer::new(cfg);
let specs = ["corpus.jsonl:text".parse::<JsonlSpec>()?];
let TrainerArtifacts { model, .. } = trainer.train_from_jsonl(&specs)?;
model.save_huggingface("tokenizer.json")?;

Hierarchical Tokenizer Families

After training the largest vocab, derive smaller siblings whose token IDs stay aligned:

bbpe train corpus.bin --vocab-size 32768 \
  --family-size 8192 --family-size 4096 \
  --family-template artifacts/model-{size}.json \
  -o artifacts/model-32768.json

BpeModel::derive_with_vocab(size) mirrors the CLI for library users. Special tokens remain clustered at the end so IDs stay consistent across the family.

Special Token Numbering

Special tokens (added via --special-token or TrainerConfig::special_tokens) are always assigned the lowest contiguous ID range [0, N) where N is the number of special tokens. This normalization happens during serialization to Hugging Face format and applies to both train and chunk-train algorithms.

For example, with 2 special tokens <|start|> and <|end|>:

Special token IDs: [0, 1]
Base byte vocabulary: [2, 257] (256 bytes)
Learned merges: [258, ...]

This ensures:

Consistent token IDs across derived vocabulary families
Compatibility with Hugging Face tokenizers library expectations
Deterministic special token numbering regardless of training algorithm

The base 256-byte vocabulary and learned merges never participate in this normalization; only special tokens are renumbered.

Chunk Training (experimental)

bbpe chunk-train slices the corpus into fixed-size windows, trains independent vocabularies, and merges them via user-selectable strategies (support, frequency, etc.). Duplicate chunk caching, entropy filtering, and reporting are built in so you can prototype large corpora without huge memory spikes.

Library Primer

use bbpe::{Trainer, TrainerConfig, IngestConfig, PreprocessorConfig, PreprocessorKind};

let trainer_cfg = TrainerConfig::builder()
    .target_vocab_size(4096)
    .min_frequency(2)
    .preprocessor(PreprocessorConfig {
        kind: PreprocessorKind::UnicodeWhitespace,
        split_probability: 0.9,
        seed: Some(42),
    })
    .build()?;
let trainer = Trainer::new(trainer_cfg);
let ingest_cfg = IngestConfig::builder().chunk_size(0).build();
let artifacts = trainer.train_from_paths(&["firmware.bin"], &ingest_cfg)?;
artifacts.model.save_huggingface("tokenizer.json")?;

// Hierarchy
let small = artifacts.model.derive_with_vocab(2048)?;
small.save_huggingface("tokenizer-2048.json")?;

Trainer::train_from_jsonl(&[JsonlSpec]) mirrors the CLI --jsonl behavior.

Streaming ingestion (library)

When corpora are too large to materialize, combine the streaming helpers with the new Trainer::train_from_stream API:

use bbpe::corpus::{stream_binary_corpus, stream_jsonl_corpus, JsonlSpec};
use bbpe::trainer::SequenceStream;

let ingest_cfg = IngestConfig::default();
let mut chunk_stream = stream_binary_corpus(&["firmware.bin"], &ingest_cfg)?;
let chunk_hint = chunk_stream.total_chunks();
let artifacts = trainer.train_from_stream(SequenceStream::with_length_hint(chunk_stream, chunk_hint))?;

// JSONL works the same way (length hint optional).
let jsonl_stream = stream_jsonl_corpus(&[JsonlSpec {
    path: "docs.jsonl.gz".into(),
    field_path: vec!["text".into()],
}])?;
let artifacts = trainer.train_from_stream(SequenceStream::new(jsonl_stream))?;

SequenceStream simply wraps any iterator that yields Result<Vec<u8>>, so you can plug in bespoke generators as long as they stream bytes.

Python Interoperability

All tokenizers are Hugging Face JSON artifacts:

from tokenizers import Tokenizer

model = Tokenizer.from_file("tokenizer.json")
encoding = model.encode("\x7fELF", add_special_tokens=False)
print(encoding.ids)

Development & Testing

cargo fmt
cargo check
cargo clippy --all-targets --all-features -- -D warnings
cargo test
# Optional sanity check before publishing
cargo package

License

Apache-2.0

Installing the command-line executable

Adding bbpe library as a dependency

Adding `bbpe` library as a dependency