binary_type_cast

A Rust crate for simplifying the process of parsing binary file data into various Rust data types using the TypeCast macro.

Under heavy development!

TODO:

• Create Tests
• Better Error Handling

Overview

The macro is designed to simplify parsing data records in a binary file via usage of a text from a description file, in the example, a desc.xml file. The following demonstrates how to define a custom enum called DataTypes and use the TypeCast macro.

Usage

Define a custom enum

In this example define DataTypes, and use the cast attribute for each variant.

#[derive(Clone, Copy, Debug, Serialize, Deserialize, TypeCast)]
pub enum DataTypes {
    #[cast(from_le_bytes => f32)]
    AnyCustomVariant,
    #[cast(from_le_bytes => [f32;2])]
    AnyCustomVariant2

}

This will automatically generate a DataTypesCast enum:

#[derive(Clone, Debug, Serialize, Deserialize)]
pub enum DataTypesCast {
    AnyCustomVariant(f32),
    AnyCustomVariant2([f32;2]),
}

Note:

Any Enum that utilizes the TypeCast will simply have Cast appended to the name. This:

#[derive(TypeCast)]
enum ExampleEnum {
    //
}

will generate the following at compile time:

#[derive(Clone, Debug, Serialize, Deserialize)]
enum ExampleEnumCast {
    //
}

The attribute macro #[derive(Clone, Debug, Serialize, Deserialize)] is hardcoded above the enum {}Cast at the moment. If there is significant demand, the macro can be altered to include only those defined on the parent enum.

Code Generation

Okay, but why not just define the DataTypesCast or ExampleEnumCast and skip the attribute nonsense?

Because the following are automatically generated:

impl DataTypes {
    pub fn parse(self, input: &mut &[u8]) -> DataTypesCast {
        match self {
            DataTypes::AnyCustomVariant => {
                DataTypesCast::AnyCustomVariant({
                    let (bytes, _) = input.split_at(std::mem::size_of::<f32>());
                    <f32>::from_le_bytes(bytes.try_into().unwrap())
                })
            }
            // This can be generated for any sized array supported by the standard library
            DataTypes::AnyCustomVariant2 => {
                DataTypesCast::AnyCustomVariant2({
                    let mut tmp_vec = std::vec::Vec::new();
                    for _ in 0..2 {
                        let (bytes, rest) = input
                            .split_at(std::mem::size_of::<f32>());
                        let converted = <f32>::from_le_bytes(
                            bytes.try_into().unwrap(),
                        );
                        *input = rest;
                        tmp_vec.push(converted);
                    }
                    let out: [f32; 2] = tmp_vec
                        .into_iter()
                        .collect::<Vec<f32>>()
                        .try_into()
                        .unwrap();
                    out
                })
            }
        }
    }

    // The TryInto implementations are so the values can be used outside of match statements. Right now, its tedious to use, but it works. See the hashmapped_fields example for usage.
    impl std::convert::TryInto<f32> for DataTypesCast {
        type Error = String;
        fn try_into(self) -> Result<f32, Self::Error> {
            match self {
                DataTypesCast::AnyCustomVariant(val) => Ok(val),
                _ => {
                    Err({
                        let res = ::alloc::fmt::format(
                            format_args!(
                                "Cannot convert non-compatible DataTypesCast into {0}",
                                "f32"
                            ),
                        );
                        res
                    })
                }
            }
        }
    }
    // allows 
    impl std::convert::TryInto<[f32; 2]> for DataTypesCast {
        type Error = String;
        fn try_into(self) -> Result<[f32; 2], Self::Error> {
            match self {
                DataTypesCast::AnyCustomVariant2(val) => Ok(val),
                _ => {
                    Err({
                        let res = ::alloc::fmt::format(
                            format_args!(
                                "Cannot convert non-compatible DataTypesCast into {0}",
                                "[f32 ; 2]"
                            ),
                        );
                        res
                    })
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

If the parent enum has a large number of variants, this would be extremely tedious to type out.

Next Steps

Define your data structures and functions for parsing the binary data.

In the hashmapped_fields example, DataRecord is a struct that contains a HashMap of field names and their parsed values. RecordDescs is a struct that deserializes description information from the desc.xml whose descriptions are then used to parse the data.dat file into a DataRecord. The example prints out the parsed data in the DataTypesCast variants and then extracts and prints the values output from a match statement and output individually using try_into.