Flexible bit- and byte-level I/O operations for Rust.
bits-io provides types and traits for handling both bits and bytes seamlessly.
While traditional Rust types like Bytes and
Buf (and their mutable counterparts) as well as the
standard library’s
Cursor,
Read, and
Write operate primarily
at the byte level, bits-io extends these capabilities by offering
fine-grained bit-level access alongside full support for familiar byte-oriented
workflows.
The types in bits-io are designed as supersets of their standard counterparts:
- You can efficiently manipulate whole bytes, slices, and streams just as before.
- You can also access and manipulate individual bits when needed, without sacrificing performance or ergonomics.
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Bits | An immutable view over underlying data that supports bit-level operations alongside traditional byte-level access—akin to Bytes, but with bit-level APIs as well. |
| BitsMut | A mutable, growable view that lets you work at both the byte and bit levels, similar in spirit to BytesMut with additional fine-grained control. |
| BitBuf | A read-only buffer trait that matches bytes::Buf and adds bit-level operations. |
| BitBufMut | A mutable buffer trait that matches bytes::BufMut and adds bit-level operations. |
| BitCursor | A cursor that tracks the current position in a buffer by bit rather than by byte; std::io::Cursor for bits. |
| BitRead | A trait analogous to std::io::Read, enabling both bite- and byte-level reads. |
| BitWrite | A trait analagous std::io::Write, enabling both bit- and byte-level writes. |
If this is just bytes with extra bit-level APIs, why not have Buf and BufMut be supertraits of BitBuf and BitBufMut?
The problem there is that then I wouldn't be able to implement BitBuf and
BitBufMut for bit-specific types I wanted to support like BitSlice.
But, Bits and BitsMut do implement Buf and Buf & BufMut respectively.