bincode-zig

A Zig implementation of the Bincode binary format specification.

Specification

The endianness of serialized values by default is little-endian. This may be configured.

Boolean types are encoded as 1 byte. 0 for false, 1 for true.

All basic numeric types will be encoded as either variable-length integers or fixed-length integers depending on the configured integer encoding.

The numeric type usize is encoded/decoded as a u64. The numeric type isize is encoded/decoded as a i64.

All floating point types will take up either exactly 4 bytes (to represent a f32) or 8 bytes (to represent a f64).

All members that are part of a tuple or struct are encoded as-is in their specified order.

Enums are encoded by their discriminant first, followed by their payload.

Slices and vectors are encoded by their length first, followed by their elements.

Fixed-length arrays are not encoded by their lengths first. This may be configured.

Encoding an unsigned variable-length integer u (of any type excepting u8) works as follows:

1. If u < 251, encode it as a single byte with that value.
2. If 251 <= u < 2**16, encode it as a literal byte 251, followed by a u16 with value u.
3. If 2**16 <= u < 2**32, encode it as a literal byte 252, followed by a u32 with value u.
4. If 2**32 <= u < 2**64, encode it as a literal byte 253, followed by a u64 with value u.
5. If 2**64 <= u < 2**128, encode it as a literal byte 254, followed by a u128 with value u.
6. If 2**128 <= u < 2**256, encode it as a literal byte 255, followed by a u256 with value u.

Encoded a signed variable-length integer works by first converting the integer to an unsigned integer using the zigzag algorithm, and then encoding the unsigned integer as an unsigned variable-length integer.

The zigzag algorithm is defined as follows:

fn zigzag(v: Signed) Unsigned {
    return if (v < 0) (~@bitCast(v) * 2 + 1) else (@intCast(v) * 2);
}

Fixed-length integers are encoded directly. When configured to encode/decode integers as fixed-length integers, enum discriminants are encoded as u32, and lengths are encoded as the numeric type usize.