SnowBinary

A binary file format, writer, and reader.

Binary Format

Spec 0

• Default Max Header Size: 8 bytes.

• Default Max Data Size: u64.

• Start with an 8 byte header of "SNOW_BIN".

• Then 8 bytes showing the snow binary version. (Spec Version) (u64)

• Then 8 bytes showing the max header size in bytes. (At least 8 bytes, max of u64::MAX bytes) (u64)

• Then 1 byte showing the max data size. (u8::MAX, u16::MAX, u32::MAX, u64::MAX, u128::MAX) (u8)

• 1 byte showing if the data should have a verification hash. (u8)

• Then write data:

  • Header of MAX_HEADER_SIZE. (No conflicting header names (Not in Spec 0))
  • Data size of MAX_DATA_SIZE.
  • Data.
  • An 8 byte verification hash, if enabled. (Only allowed if feature v_hash is enabled.)
  • Repeat until /.

• End with a MAX_HEADER_SIZE byte header of "SNOW_END".

Basic Example

{
    let info = SnowBinInfo::new();    

    let writer = SnowBinWriter::new(&info, PATH as PathBuf)?;
    writer.write("Header", DATA as &[u8])?;
} // File is flushed when writer.close() is called or when writer is dropped.

{
    let reader = SnowBinReader::new()?;
    reader.read("Header")?; // Returns data has Vec<u8>
}

Future Improvements

• Better testing.
• More examples.
• Docs.