2 unstable releases
0.2.0 | Apr 5, 2020 |
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0.1.0 | Feb 26, 2019 |
#1551 in Encoding
Used in ahuff
34KB
558 lines
endio_bit
Bit-level reading and writing
std::io::{Read, Write}
only allow reading and writing on the byte-level. This is not sufficient when working with protocols that use single bits or use structs that are not multiples of 8 bits in size. This crate provides wrappers for reading and writing, enabling bit-level I/O on any object implementing Read
/Write
.
The wrappers are modeled after std::io::BufReader
and std::io::BufWriter
, so the semantics and interface should be familiar and robust.
This crate is a minimal low-level abstraction focusing on bit-level I/O. I recommend using this crate together with endio
if you also need byte-level I/O or (de-)serialization support. However, this crate is completely independent from endio
, and can be used standalone if you're only looking for std::io
with bit support.
Goals of this crate
- Reading and writing of single bits.
- Reading and writing of bits that aren't a multiple of 8.
- Reading and writing even if the underlying object is bitshifted.
- Support for bit endianness conversion/distinction.
Non-goals of this crate
- Data type (de-)serialization. If you need this, use
endio
in combination with this crate. - Byte endianness conversion/distinction. If you need this, use
endio
in combination with this crate.
Comparison with other crates
Bit-level I/O is a common problem, and there are numerous crates on crates.io attempting to provide solutions. However, I haven't been able to find one that is completely satisfactory. Here's a list of related crates and how they differ from this one:
-
av-bitstream
- Includes (de-)serialization and byte endianness. No bit-level writing. Undocumented. -
bit-io
- Does not implementstd::io::{Read, Write}
. No support for bit endianness. Undocumented. -
bitio
- No support for writing. No support for bit endianness. -
bitstream
,bitstream_reader
,bitter
- Include (de-)serialization and byte endianness. No support for writing. -
bitstream-io
- Includes (de-)serialization and byte endianness. Includes Huffman trees for some reason. Does not implementstd::io::{Read, Write}
. -
bitstream-rs
- Only has support for reading and writing single bits. Does not implementstd::io::{Read, Write}
. -
bitreader
- Only has support for reading. Includes deserialization in forced big endian, no little endian support.
Therefore there is an opportunity to improve on the current library situation, which I hope to address through this crate.