Crate bitreader [] [src]

BitReader is a helper type to extract strings of bits from a slice of bytes.

Here is how you read first a single bit, then three bits and finally four bits from a byte buffer:

use bitreader::BitReader;

let slice_of_u8 = &[0b1000_1111];
let mut reader = BitReader::new(slice_of_u8);

// You probably should use try! or some other error handling mechanism in real code if the
// length of the input is not known in advance.
let a_single_bit = reader.read_u8(1).unwrap();
assert_eq!(a_single_bit, 1);

let more_bits = reader.read_u8(3).unwrap();
assert_eq!(more_bits, 0);

let last_bits_of_byte = reader.read_u8(4).unwrap();
assert_eq!(last_bits_of_byte, 0b1111);

You can naturally read bits from longer buffer of data than just a single byte.

As you read bits, the internal cursor of BitReader moves on along the stream of bits. Little endian format is assumed when reading the multi-byte values. BitReader supports reading maximum of 64 bits at a time (with read_u64). Reading signed values directly is not supported at the moment.

The reads do not need to be aligned in any particular way.

Reading zero bits is a no-op.

You can also skip over a number of bits, in which case there is no arbitrary small limits like when reading the values to a variable. However, you can not seek past the end of the slice, either when reading or when skipping bits.

Note that the code will likely not work correctly if the slice is longer than 261 bytes, but exceeding that should be pretty unlikely. Let's get back to this when people read exabytes of information one bit at a time.

Structs

BitReader

BitReader reads data from a byte slice at the granularity of a single bit.

Enums

BitReaderError

Error enumeration of BitReader errors.

Traits

ReadInto

Helper trait to allow reading bits into a variable without explicitly mentioning its type.

Type Definitions

Result

Result type for those BitReader operations that can fail.