vds

Visibly Distinguishable Strings — a #![no_std] Rust crate for creating and validating string identifiers composed of easily readable characters.

This crate helps you generate and work with strings that:

Exclude confusing glyphs like O, 0, I, 1
Use only uppercase Latin letters and select digits
Are safe for UI display, voice transmission, QR encoding, and more

🚀 Getting Started

Install via Cargo:

cargo add vds

Enable optional features:

serde — enables Serialize/Deserialize for VDChar and VDString
generate — adds a builder for random string generation using rand_core

[dependencies]

vds = { version = "1.0", features = ["generate", "serde"] }

🎯 Types

`VDChar`

A single, clearly readable character from a curated set.

use vds::VDChar;
assert!(VDChar::new('A').is_some());
assert!(VDChar::new('O').is_none()); // O is excluded

`VDString`

A validated string composed of VDChars. Acts like &str and supports .parse(), indexing, and iteration.

use vds::VDString;
let code: VDString = "AB29XY".parse().unwrap();
assert_eq!(&*code, "AB29XY");

`VDGenerator` (requires `generate` feature)

A builder for generating readable strings with optional constraints:

use vds::VDGenerator;
use rand::SeedableRng;

let mut rng = rand::rngs::SmallRng::seed_from_u64(123);
let code = VDGenerator::new()
    .length(8)
    .no_repeats()
    .no_adjacent_repeats()
    .generate(&mut rng)
    .unwrap();

🧪 Development & Testing

🛠 Dev Commands

This repo includes a .cargo/config.toml file with helpful aliases:

cargo docs — build and open full-featured docs
cargo tests — run the full test suite with all features
cargo checks — check build with no default features
cargo builds — build with all features enabled

📦 Crate Metadata

License: MIT OR Apache-2.0
Repo: github.com/ianwillis98/vds
Minimum Rust: 1.65
No std required

📜 License

Licensed under either of:

MIT OR Apache-2.0

vds 1.0.3

vds