Qubit Misc Codec
Reusable byte and text codecs for Rust applications.
Overview
Qubit Misc Codec provides small, explicit codecs for stable byte and text encodings commonly needed across Qubit Rust crates and applications. Its API stays lightweight, typed, and idiomatic, with direct concrete methods for common use cases and traits for generic boundaries.
This crate focuses on textual encodings with clear wire-format semantics:
- hexadecimal byte strings
- Base64 byte strings
- C integer literal fragments
- C string literal byte fragments
- percent-encoded UTF-8 text
application/x-www-form-urlencodedUTF-8 text fragments
It intentionally does not replace Rust's Display, FromStr, TryFrom, or
serde APIs for ordinary object conversion.
Design Goals
- Explicit Semantics: each codec documents its alphabet, separator, padding, and decoding rules.
- Small API Surface: expose direct
encodeanddecodemethods first, with traits available for generic call sites. - No Hidden Panics: malformed input is reported as
MiscCodecErrorinstead of panicking. - Layered Traits:
Codeccovers low-level single-value or quantum conversion, whileValueEncoderandValueDecoderremain owned whole-value convenience traits. Generic adapters, buffered engines, and policy hooks live inqubit-codec; import them from the core crate when building custom adapters around these codecs. - Reusable Implementations: common encodings live in one crate instead of being reimplemented by downstream crates.
- Minimal Dependencies: rely on well-maintained crates only where they add real value.
Features
🔡 Hexadecimal Bytes
- Lowercase by Default:
HexCodec::new()produces contiguous lowercase hex. - Uppercase Mode:
HexCodec::upper()orwith_uppercase(true)produces uppercase digits. - Optional Whole Prefix: add and require a prefix such as
0xbefore the entire encoded value. - Optional Per-Byte Prefix: add and require a byte prefix such as
0xbefore each encoded byte. - Optional Separator: write and accept separators between bytes, such as
:or a space. - Whitespace Handling: optionally ignore ASCII whitespace while decoding.
- Prefix Case Handling: optionally ignore ASCII case when matching configured prefixes while decoding.
- Named Configuration: reuse a
HexCodecConfigthroughHexCodec::from_configwhen several codecs share the same policy. - Hex buffer APIs:
HexCodec::encode_intoandHexCodec::decode_intoappend into existing buffers.
Whitespace policy depends on the separator configuration. With a non-empty
separator, each byte requires two adjacent hex digits: 1 f:8b is rejected
with separator :. Without a non-empty separator, ignored whitespace may
split a byte, so 0x1 f is accepted with byte prefix 0x. Complete structural
tokens take precedence over extra ignored whitespace: with ignored ASCII
whitespace enabled and separator :, 1f\t : 8b decodes to
[0x1f, 0x8b]. In this example, \t denotes an actual tab character.
Required separators remain required. Non-whitespace separators are matched
exactly; a whitespace-only separator still requires whitespace between bytes,
and ignored ASCII whitespace may consume additional adjacent whitespace.
🔐 Base64 Bytes
- Standard Alphabet: padded and no-padding standard Base64.
- URL-Safe Alphabet: padded and no-padding URL-safe Base64.
- Strict Padding: each facade accepts only its configured padding policy;
complete groups such as
TWFuare valid with either policy. Whitespace and non-canonical trailing bits are rejected. - Quantum Core:
Base64QuantumCodechandles complete three-byte to four-unit Base64 quanta; final padding stays in the facade/transcoder layer. - Typed Errors: malformed input is reported as
MiscCodecError::InvalidBase64, retaining thebase64::DecodeErrorsource, error category, and input index when available. - Three layers:
Base64Codecencodes or decodes a whole value;Base64QuantumCodechandles complete three-byte/four-unit quanta;Base64EncoderandBase64Decoderstream complete values across calls. - Independent streaming state: construct a direction-specific encoder or
decoder directly, or use
Base64Codec::encoder()/decoder()to copy its alphabet and padding configuration. Each instance has independent state and must be reset before its first streaming call. - Streaming contract: the encoder retains up to two input bytes internally
and emits a partial final group from
finish. The decoder leaves an incomplete non-EOF suffix unconsumed; the caller must retain it and present it again with more input, or pass it totranscode_eofonce EOF is known.Completeonly describes the visible input for that call, not source EOF. - Capacity and recovery:
NeedOutput.requiredis the minimum total capacity needed from the advanced output position (output_index + progress.written()) for the next step, not the whole-call output length or an additional byte count. When retaining the buffer, its length must cover that position plusrequired; when switching to an empty buffer at index zero, provide at leastrequiredslots. Advance input byprogress.read()before retrying. Capacity bounds are conservative, including for empty input. A malformed-input error can follow partial output; the stream is then poisoned and must be reset before reuse. A general driver should use checked arithmetic for the advanced output position and required buffer length, and handle overflow before allocating. - Error coordinates:
error.domain_error_ref().and_then(|error| error.input_index())reports a position in the input slice passed to the current call, not a cumulative stream offset.MiscCodecError::InvalidBase64and itsbase64::DecodeErrorsource preserve the engine sub-slice position, which can vary with batching, EOF handling, and output capacity. Errors without an exact engine position use the failing segment's start in the outer error. A driver that needs whole-stream positions must track discarded input itself.
For example, decoding __TWFu@AAA from index 2 reports outer position 6 in
both a small-output call and an EOF call. The inner error/source position is 0
for the small-output path and 4 for the EOF path; neither is a whole-stream
offset.
The encoder reports capacity from the advanced output position. This example retains the first output and retries only the unconsumed input:
This streaming example requires both direct dependencies shown in Installation.
use TranscodeStatus;
use Transcoder;
use Base64Encoder;
let mut encoder = standard;
encoder.reset?;
let mut output = ;
let first = encoder.transcode?;
assert_eq!;
let required = match first.status ;
let mut larger = ;
larger.copy_from_slice;
let next = encoder.transcode?;
assert_eq!;
assert_eq!;
assert_eq!;
assert_eq!;
# Ok::
When using streaming decode hooks that skip or replace malformed percent, form-URL, or C-string input, the codec reports the invalid span visible in the current chunk. Recovery output for malformed input may therefore depend on chunk boundaries. This caveat does not apply to valid input or strict decoding.
🔤 C String Literal Bytes
- Mixed Text and Escapes: decodes fragments such as
PK\003\004and\xd0\xcf. - C Escape Support: handles simple, octal, hexadecimal, and universal byte escapes.
- Byte-Oriented Output: decodes directly to raw bytes without requiring UTF-8.
🔢 C Integer Literals
- Radix Detection: decodes decimal, octal, and
0x/0Xhexadecimal integer literals. - Unsigned Output: returns
u64for non-negative integer literal fragments. - Precise Errors: reports invalid digits with their original input index.
- Restricted Token Contract: accepts complete non-negative tokens only; signs, suffixes, digit separators, and token-stream parsing are not included.
- Value-Token Decode: remains a
ValueDecoder<str>convenience codec because integer literal encoding strategy and token boundaries are not part of the single-value core abstraction yet.
🌐 Percent-Encoding
- UTF-8 Text: encodes and decodes UTF-8 strings.
- RFC 3986 Unreserved Set: leaves ASCII letters, digits,
-,.,_, and~unchanged. - Uppercase Escapes: writes percent escapes such as
%2Fand%E4. - Malformed Escape Detection: reports truncated or invalid
%XXsequences.
📝 Form URL Encoding
- Form Fragment Codec: handles
application/x-www-form-urlencodedtext fragments. - Space as Plus: encodes spaces as
+and decodes+back to spaces. - WHATWG Character Set: leaves only ASCII letters, digits,
*,-,., and_unescaped. - Percent Compatibility: shares the same UTF-8 and
%XXvalidation behavior asPercentCodec.
🎯 Focused Public API
ValueEncoder<Input>: encodes borrowed input into an associated output type.ValueDecoder<Input>: decodes borrowed input into an associated output type.Codecwith associatedValueandUnit: a low-level trait with unsafe encoding and decoding entry points for one value or codec quantum over caller-provided unit buffers. Callers must uphold the documented index and capacity preconditions; implementations useimpl Codec, notunsafe impl Codec.CodecValueEncoder<C>/CodecTranscodeEncoder<C>/CodecTranscodeDecoder<C>: default value and buffered adapters available fromqubit-codec.TranscodeEncodeEngine/TranscodeEncodeHooks/TranscodeDecodeEngine/TranscodeDecodeHooks: reusable buffered engines and policy hooks available fromqubit-codecfor custom adapters.MiscCodecError/MiscCodecResult: common error and result types for bundled codecs.
Installation
Add this to your Cargo.toml:
[]
= "0.8"
For traits, adapters, or streaming APIs imported from qubit_codec, also add
qubit-codec as a direct dependency:
[]
= "0.17"
= "0.8"
Example: Parsing a Magic Rule
An application that has already extracted attributes from XML can use these codecs to parse a magic rule. This is an application composition example, not a complete MIME loader: the library parses syntax and numeric values, while the application checks the real field width and mask length, associates errors with the source rule, and decides whether to load it. A parse failure rejects the rule; it must not silently keep partially parsed values.
Here, number is a separate illustrative numeric field; it does not imply that the string magic and the numeric value belong to the same MIME matcher rule. u16 is for demonstration only; choose the width according to the actual target field.
use CIntegerLiteralCodec;
use CStringLiteralCodec;
use HexCodec;
Quick Start
Hexadecimal Bytes
use HexCodec;
Base64 Bytes
use Base64Codec;
Whole-value conversion and streaming conversion are separate APIs. The
whole-value methods below allocate their returned String or Vec; the
transcoder methods write to caller-owned buffers.
use Transcoder;
use ;
let mut decoder = standard;
let mut raw = ;
let n = decoder.transcode_complete_into.expect;
assert_eq!;
let mut encoder = standard.encoder;
let mut text = ;
let n = encoder.transcode_complete_into.expect;
assert_eq!;
For streaming, call reset before the first chunk. The decoder does not store
an incomplete text suffix, so keep unconsumed input and append new source bytes
before retrying. Confirm EOF with the source before calling transcode_eof;
after a successful final call, call finish.
use ;
use Base64Decoder;
let mut decoder = standard;
decoder.reset.expect;
let mut raw = ;
let p = decoder.transcode.expect;
assert_eq!;
assert!;
// Keep the unconsumed TQ and append the final == from the source.
let p = decoder.transcode_eof.expect;
assert_eq!;
decoder.finish.expect;
The encoder retains short input internally, so callers do not need to carry a
partial byte tail between calls. It emits the final group only from finish.
use Transcoder;
use Base64Encoder;
let mut encoder = standard;
let mut text = ;
encoder.reset.expect;
assert_eq!;
assert_eq!;
assert_eq!;
assert_eq!;
assert_eq!;
URL-Safe Base64 Without Padding
use Base64Codec;
C String Literal Bytes
use CStringLiteralCodec;
Hexadecimal escapes consume one or two digits. Octal escapes consume up to
three digits and retain the low eight bits. Universal \u escapes require
exactly four hex digits, and \U escapes require exactly eight; both must fit
in one byte and do not convert Unicode to UTF-8. Surrounding quotes are not
removed. For example, \x123 yields [0x12, b'3'] and \777 yields
[0xff]. Raw source text may contain printable ASCII, tab, LF, VT, and FF;
other characters must be escaped. An escaped space (\ ) is accepted. For
streaming input, call Codec::decode_eof after confirming EOF to resolve
format-specific short escapes.
C Integer Literals
use CIntegerLiteralCodec;
Percent-Encoding UTF-8 Text
use PercentCodec;
Form URL Encoding
use FormUrlencodedCodec;
Generic Trait Usage
Use the traits when application code should depend on an encoding capability instead of a concrete codec type.
These traits are defined by the qubit-codec crate, so generic call sites
should declare that crate as a direct dependency.
use ValueEncoder;
use ;
Safe Streaming Hex Byte Adapter
Add both direct dependencies:
[]
= "0.17"
= "0.8"
HexByteCodec decodes one byte at a time. It does not accept HexCodec whole-value prefixes, per-byte prefixes, or separator configuration; those formatting options do not transfer between the codecs. Keep unconsumed input in pending, remove only the read prefix, and treat only the written output prefix as valid. This fixed two-byte output is sufficient for the example and explicitly cannot produce NeedOutput; a general driver must grow or replace its output buffer on NeedOutput and retry with unconsumed input. Complete means the current call consumed its visible input, not that the source reached EOF. Once the source confirms EOF, call transcode_eof with the pending tail, then finish.
use CodecTranscodeDecoder;
use TranscodeDecodeError;
use TranscodeFailure;
use TranscodeStatus;
use Transcoder;
use HexByteCodec;
For the related short-escape boundary, see the CStringLiteralCodec EOF short-escape test (the test checks that a short escape is resolved only after EOF is known).
API Reference
Trait Operations
| Trait | Method | Description |
|---|---|---|
ValueEncoder<Input> |
encode(&Input) |
Encode borrowed input into an associated output type |
ValueDecoder<Input> |
decode(&Input) |
Decode borrowed input into an associated output type |
Codec with associated Value and Unit |
decode, encode |
Convert one value or codec quantum against caller-provided unit buffers |
The low-level codecs convert one byte or one complete quantum.
HexByteCodec
excludes prefixes and separators, which are handled by
HexCodec.
PercentCodec
and
FormUrlencodedCodec
validate UTF-8 when their whole-value decode helpers return a String.
Base64QuantumCodec
handles only complete quanta;
Base64Codec,
Base64Encoder,
and
Base64Decoder
already handle final partial groups and padding according to their configured
policies.
HexCodec Operations
| Method | Description |
|---|---|
new() |
Create a lowercase codec without prefix or separators |
upper() |
Create an uppercase codec without prefix or separators |
with_uppercase(enabled) |
Configure digit case |
with_prefix(prefix) |
Add and require a whole-output prefix, such as 0x1F8B |
with_byte_prefix(prefix) |
Add and require a prefix before every byte, such as 0x1F 0x8B |
with_separator(separator) |
Add and accept a separator between bytes |
with_ignored_ascii_whitespace(enabled) |
Ignore ASCII whitespace while decoding |
with_ignore_prefix_case(enabled) |
Ignore ASCII case when matching configured prefixes while decoding |
encode(bytes) |
Encode bytes into hexadecimal text |
encode_into(bytes, output) |
Append encoded text into an existing String |
decode(text) |
Decode hexadecimal text into bytes |
decode_into(text, output) |
Append decoded bytes into an existing Vec<u8> |
HexCodecConfig Operations
| Method | Description |
|---|---|
new() |
Create the default lowercase, contiguous-hex configuration |
with_uppercase(enabled) |
Configure digit case |
with_prefix(prefix) |
Configure a whole-output prefix |
with_byte_prefix(prefix) |
Configure a prefix before every byte |
with_separator(separator) |
Configure the separator between bytes |
with_ignored_ascii_whitespace(enabled) |
Configure whitespace handling while decoding |
with_ignore_prefix_case(enabled) |
Configure case-insensitive prefix matching |
is_uppercase() / prefix() / byte_prefix() |
Inspect configured output formatting |
separator() / ignores_ascii_whitespace() / ignores_prefix_case() |
Inspect configured decoding policy |
HexCodec::from_config(config) |
Create a codec from the reusable configuration |
HexCodec::config() |
Borrow the codec's configuration |
HexByteCodec Operations
| Method or Trait | Description |
|---|---|
new() |
Create a lowercase single-byte hex codec |
upper() |
Create an uppercase single-byte hex codec |
with_uppercase(enabled) |
Configure digit case |
Codec<Value = u8, Unit = u8> |
Decode or encode one byte as exactly two ASCII hex units |
Base64Codec Operations
| Method | Alphabet | Padding | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
standard() |
Standard | Yes | Create standard Base64 codec |
standard_no_pad() |
Standard | No | Create standard Base64 codec without padding |
url_safe() |
URL-safe | Yes | Create URL-safe Base64 codec |
url_safe_no_pad() |
URL-safe | No | Create URL-safe Base64 codec without padding |
encode(bytes) |
Configured | Configured | Encode bytes into Base64 text |
decode(text) |
Configured | Configured | Decode Base64 text into bytes |
Base64Codec is the owned whole-value facade. It does not provide
decode_into; use Base64Decoder and Transcoder when decoding into a
caller-owned buffer. Base64Codec::encoder() and decoder() create independent
streaming states with the facade's configuration. The direction-specific types
also expose standard(), standard_no_pad(), url_safe(), and
url_safe_no_pad() constructors; their Default is standard padded Base64.
The padded and unpadded modes reject each other's partial-group form. For
example, Base64Codec::standard().decode("Zg") and
Base64Codec::standard_no_pad().decode("Zg==") both return an error, while
both modes accept "TWFu" because it encodes a complete three-byte group and
needs no padding.
Base64QuantumCodec Operations
| Method | Alphabet | Units | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
standard() |
Standard | 4 | Create a standard Base64 quantum codec |
url_safe() |
URL-safe | 4 | Create a URL-safe Base64 quantum codec |
Codec<Value = [u8; 3], Unit = u8> |
Configured | 4 | Encode or decode one complete Base64 quantum without padding finalization |
Invalid quantum units now return MiscCodecError::InvalidBase64 with
Base64ErrorKind::InvalidByte, rather than
InvalidInput { codec: "base64-quantum", .. }. Read input_index and symbol
instead of parsing the diagnostic text. The index is relative to the input
slice passed to the call; the invalid quantum still consumes four units.
Padding is unsupported by this layer, so = is classified as an invalid byte.
CStringLiteralCodec Operations
| Method | Description |
|---|---|
new() |
Create a C string literal byte codec |
encode(bytes) |
Encode bytes into a C string literal fragment |
decode(text) |
Decode a C string literal fragment into bytes |
CIntegerLiteralCodec Operations
| Method | Description |
|---|---|
new() |
Create a C integer literal decoder |
decode(text) |
Decode a non-negative C integer literal fragment into u64 |
CIntegerLiteralCodec intentionally remains a value-token decoder. It does not
implement Codec<Value = u64, Unit = u8> yet because that would require committing to token
boundary and encode-format policy that belongs above the single-value core.
Text Codec Operations
| Type | Method | Description |
|---|---|---|
PercentCodec |
new() |
Create a percent codec |
PercentCodec |
encode(text) |
Encode UTF-8 text using percent encoding |
PercentCodec |
decode(text) |
Decode percent-encoded UTF-8 text |
FormUrlencodedCodec |
new() |
Create a form-url-encoded codec |
FormUrlencodedCodec |
encode(text) |
Encode UTF-8 text, using + for spaces |
FormUrlencodedCodec |
decode(text) |
Decode UTF-8 text, treating + as spaces |
Error Handling
Bundled decoders return MiscCodecResult<T>, an alias for
Result<T, MiscCodecError>.
| Error | Meaning |
|---|---|
MissingPrefix |
A configured whole or per-byte hex prefix was required but missing |
InvalidDigit |
Input contained a digit that is invalid for the requested radix |
InvalidLength |
Input length does not satisfy a codec requirement |
InvalidEscape |
Input contained a malformed or unsupported escape sequence |
InvalidCharacter |
Input contained a character that cannot appear in that context |
InvalidInput |
Input was rejected by a codec-specific validator |
InvalidBase64 |
Base64 decoding failed; includes a structured category and preserves the underlying base64::DecodeError |
InvalidUtf8 |
Decoded bytes were not valid UTF-8 |
Complete-value helpers report truncated %XX and C escapes as
InvalidEscape. Low-level Codec::decode calls use
qubit_codec::DecodeFailure::Incomplete for open-stream tails; callers that
have confirmed EOF should call Codec::decode_eof so format-specific short
escapes can be resolved.
Performance Considerations
Codec implementations operate on borrowed byte slices or strings and return owned output only when the target format requires it. Configuration is stored in small value types, and generic trait use does not require dynamic dispatch.
Run cargo bench --bench codec_benchmarks -- base64-transcoders to measure
Base64 owned, caller-buffer, and streaming paths at 64 B and 64 KiB. Streaming
cases include 7-byte and 4096-byte chunks; the mode sample includes the other
alphabet and padding configurations. Output buffers are allocated before each
timed loop. Owned cases include output allocation, so their timings are not a
direct measure of codec work alone. The benchmark reports measured throughput
when run; no throughput value is assumed here. The fuzz targets under fuzz/
can be compiled with
cargo +nightly fuzz build and run with cargo +nightly fuzz run percent_and_form (or the other target names).
Dependencies
Runtime dependencies are intentionally small:
base64provides the Base64 engines.percent-encodingprovides the percent escape byte table.thiserrorprovides the public error type implementation.
The form_urlencoded crate is used only by differential tests and fuzz targets;
it is not part of the runtime API.
Testing
# Run tests with the default feature set
# Run tests with all declared features
# Project CI checks
# Check code coverage
License
Copyright (c) 2025 - 2026. Haixing Hu. All rights reserved.
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See LICENSE for the full license text.
Contributing
Contributions are welcome. Please follow the Rust API guidelines, keep public
API documentation and tests current, and run ./.infra/bin/align-ci.sh to format code and
./.infra/bin/ci-check.sh to satisfy CI requirements before submitting a pull request.
Author
Haixing Hu - Qubit Co. Ltd.
Repository: https://github.com/qubit-ltd/rs-codec-misc