wire-repr 0.3.0

A no_std, no_alloc Rust library for wire representations.
Documentation

wire-repr generates safe borrowed views, constrained mutable views, and atomic caller-buffer builders from compact layout declarations. It is designed for network protocols, file headers, storage pages, firmware formats, IPC, and other binary data where exact bytes and explicit ownership matter.

[!IMPORTANT] Generated views borrow ordinary byte slices. They do not reinterpret bytes as Rust structs and do not depend on alignment, ABI layout, allocation, or unsafe.

✨ What it does

  • Zero-copy views. Parse directly over caller-owned bytes and retain exact represented spans, including legal noncanonical prefix encodings.
  • Direct generated code. Fixed getters compile to ordinary loads, endian conversions, shifts, and masks—without runtime schemas, reflection, or field lookup.
  • Atomic writes. Builders plan the complete representation before touching caller output; an error leaves the whole destination unchanged.
  • Explicit framing. parse_prefix returns one bounded representation plus its suffix, while parse_exact rejects unrelated trailing bytes.
  • Consumer-owned semantics. The framework owns bounds and layout. Consumers keep ownership of magic values, reserved-byte policy, checksums, and cross-field rules.
  • Small runtime. The public crate is no_std, no_alloc, dependency-free at target runtime, and safe Rust only.

🚀 Quick start

Add the facade crate:

[dependencies]
wire-repr = { version = "0.2", default-features = false }

Declare a sequential layout. Physical placement is inferred from declaration order:

use wire_repr::wire_repr;

wire_repr! {
    pub layout Header {
        field kind: U8;
        field length: BeU16;
        field flags: U8 {
            projections {
                bit enabled: 0;
                bits mode: 1..=3;
            }
        }
    }
}

let input = [7, 0x01, 0x00, 0b0000_1011, 0xff];
let (view, suffix) = HeaderView::parse_prefix(&input).expect("valid header");

assert_eq!(view.as_bytes(), &input[..4]);
assert_eq!(suffix, &[0xff]);
assert_eq!(view.kind(), 7);
assert_eq!(view.length(), 256);
assert!(view.enabled());
assert_eq!(view.mode(), 5);

let mut output = [0u8; 4];
let (built, suffix) = HeaderBuilder::new()
    .kind(7)
    .length(256)
    .flags(0b0000_1011)
    .build_into(&mut output)
    .expect("complete builder");

assert_eq!(built.as_bytes(), &input[..4]);
assert!(suffix.is_empty());

[!NOTE] parse_prefix excludes the suffix from the generated view. Use parse_exact when the entire input must be exactly one representation.

🧭 Layout model

Sequential layouts

Sequential layouts use source order by default. Fields, padding, and alignment occupy contiguous one-based physical positions:

wire_repr::wire_repr! {
    pub layout Record {
        field kind: U8;
        padding { length: 3; }
        align { boundary: 8; }
        field flags: BeU16;
    }
}

Use explicit position on every physical entry only when wire order must differ from API and documentation order:

wire_repr::wire_repr! {
    pub layout Reordered {
        field checksum: BeU16 { position: 2; }
        field tag: U8 { position: 1; }
    }
}

Mixing explicit and implicit placement is rejected. Declaration order always controls the generated API and rustdoc order; explicit positions control only physical order.

Absolute layouts

Absolute layouts use mandatory zero-based byte offsets:

wire_repr::wire_repr! {
    pub absolute layout DatabaseHeader {
        field magic: bytes(16) { offset: 0; }
        field version: BeU32 { offset: 16; }
    }
}

Gaps remain represented bytes and are preserved verbatim. Overlapping codec extents are rejected before input access. Absolute layouts are fixed-width and deliberately do not infer offsets or support padding and alignment entries.

🧩 Fields and framing

Fixed values and byte spans

Built-in fixed codecs cover unsigned 8/16/24/32/64/128-bit integers and signed 8/16/32/64/128-bit integers in the applicable byte orders. Fixed codecs decode every exact-width bit pattern; domain validation remains consumer-owned.

Use bytes(N) when a field owns fixed-width bytes without interpreting them. Its getter returns the original borrowed &[u8]. Builders and setters check only the exact width before mutation.

Total semantic mappings

An eligible built-in fixed integer or bytes(N) field can expose a nominal domain-facing type while retaining its physical wire codec:

wire_repr::wire_repr! {
    pub layout Message {
        field kind: BeU16 as crate::Kind;
        field address: bytes(4) as crate::Address;
    }
}

as TypePath comes immediately after the codec, before placement or projections. It is not a codec declaration: kind() returns Kind, kind_raw() returns the codec's raw u16, and the corresponding setters and builder methods accept either form. This requires total Kind: From<u16> and u16: From<Kind> conversions; bytes(4) similarly maps between its semantic type and [u8; 4]. The raw mapping is exact (U24 is u32), with no fallible conversion layer. Mapped byte values are owned arrays or wrappers; unmapped bytes(N) remains borrowed &[u8].

Declared scalar Name: Codec; has a different job: it creates a reusable nominal wrapper that owns a codec. as Type maps one eligible built-in physical field through From; it does not apply to declared scalar, custom/direct, prefix, or byte range fields.

Bit projections

Unsigned built-in storage fields can expose named immutable projections:

field flags: U8 {
    projections {
        bit enabled: 0;
        bits mode: 1..=3;
    }
}

Bit zero is the decoded value's least-significant bit regardless of wire endianness. The storage field remains the only byte owner; projection getters are direct shift/mask operations with no runtime metadata or dispatch. On a mapped integer field, projections still read the physical decoded raw integer, not the semantic wrapper.

Prefix fields

A sequential field backed by a custom PrefixCodec discovers its exact encoded width during structural parsing:

field name: prefix(crate::Terminated);

The generated view preserves the exact accepted bytes. name() returns the decoded value, while name_raw() exposes the exact validated raw wire bytes: the original wire representation. Parsing validates the prefix extent once and rejects any codec claim beyond the remaining input.

Byte ranges

Sequential layouts have three byte-range forms:

  • bytes(current_pos..current_pos + source) is a relative payload length;
  • bytes(current_pos..source) is an exclusive absolute payload endpoint measured from representation byte zero;
  • bytes(current_pos..buf_end) consumes the supplied view-buffer tail.

The first two forms require an eligible physically preceding source: a built-in fixed integer, or a total semantic mapping over one. Framing uses the raw physical integer (u32 for U24) and a checked conversion to usize. Prefix, custom/direct, declared scalar, nominal, and byte-range sources are unsupported. bytes(0) remains invalid, while dynamic ranges may be empty.

wire_repr::wire_repr! {
    pub layout Frame {
        field payload_length: BeU16;
        field payload: bytes(current_pos..current_pos + payload_length);
        field checksum: BeU32;
    }
}

A relative builder derives the payload length. An absolute builder derives the physical payload end, including preceding fixed and prefix widths, padding, alignment, and prior ranges. A derived source has neither builder input nor setter. Shared sources use the same algebra and must receive identical derived values. A source may be declared later in explicit-position declaration order, but it must physically precede every range it frames.

buf_end has no source, may occur once, and must be physically last. It owns every byte left in the caller-supplied input after preceding entries, including an empty span:

wire_repr::wire_repr! {
    pub layout EthernetEnvelope {
        field destination: bytes(6);
        field source: bytes(6);
        field ether_type: BeU16;
        field payload: bytes(current_pos..buf_end);
    }
}

Because buf_end consumes the supplied view buffer, parse_prefix returns an empty suffix and parse_exact accepts the same input. It does not identify an external packet, transport, or FCS boundary. Conversely, parse_prefix for a relative or absolute range returns the suffix after the complete represented layout; it does not automatically stop at an absolute range endpoint when later physical fields exist.

[!TIP] Keep unsupported variable-width-source framing—such as a WebAssembly section size encoded as ULEB128—consumer-owned. The framework does not support prefix range sources.

✍️ Mutation and building

Generated mutable views preserve the same represented extent as immutable views. Same-width fixed fields receive typed setters only when changing them cannot invalidate range framing. Prefix fields, byte ranges, buf_end, and byte-range sources do not receive in-place setters; ranges instead expose mutable slices of exactly their validated spans and cannot resize or reframe the view.

Builders preflight every codec plan, dynamic extent, source conversion, checked arithmetic, and output-capacity requirement before writing. Relative sources derive payload lengths; absolute sources derive physical exclusive payload ends; buf_end has no source. Successful builds return the bounded mutable view and disjoint suffix. Failures leave all caller-owned output unchanged. Padding, alignment bytes, absolute gaps, and suffixes are preserved.

🔬 What reaches the CPU

Generated fixed-layout operations are ordinary safe Rust: direct byte loads, endian conversion, shifts, masks, and bounded copies. There are no runtime descriptors, schema walkers, erased codecs, hidden allocation, or dynamic dispatch.

Here is the generated API beside the ordinary safe Rust it replaces:

wire_repr::wire_repr! {
    pub layout Counter {
        field value: BeU16;
    }
}

fn generated_read(bytes: &[u8]) -> Option<u16> {
    CounterView::parse_exact(bytes).ok().map(|view| view.value())
}

fn handwritten_read(bytes: &[u8]) -> Option<u16> {
    let bytes: &[u8; 2] = bytes.try_into().ok()?;
    Some(u16::from_be_bytes(*bytes))
}

let wire = [0x12, 0x34];
assert_eq!(generated_read(&wire), Some(0x1234));
assert_eq!(generated_read(&wire), handwritten_read(&wire));

let mut generated = [0u8; 2];
CounterBuilder::new()
    .value(0xbeef)
    .build_into(&mut generated)
    .unwrap();

let mut handwritten = [0u8; 2];
handwritten.copy_from_slice(&0xbeefu16.to_be_bytes());

assert_eq!(generated, [0xbe, 0xef]);
assert_eq!(generated, handwritten);

At runtime, CounterView is only a checked borrow of the two input bytes. The getter loads those bytes and converts them from big endian. The builder checks that two output bytes are available and stores the big-endian value. The generated view, builder, and error types improve the source-level contract; they do not introduce a runtime engine.

With Rust 1.91.0 targeting x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, those operations become the following optimized bodies (compiler-local labels simplified):

cmpq    $2, %rsi        # require exactly two input bytes
jne     .invalid
movzwl  (%rdi), %edx    # load the u16
rolw    $8, %dx         # convert big endian to native endian
movw    $1, %ax         # return Some(value)
retq
.invalid:
xorl    %eax, %eax      # return None
retq

cmpq    $2, %rsi        # require at least two output bytes
jb      .short
rolw    $8, %dx         # convert native endian to big endian
movw    %dx, (%rdi)     # store the u16
.short:
cmpq    $2, %rsi
setae   %al             # report success or short output
retq

The generated and handwritten fixed getter/builders optimize to the same operation bodies; the comments above only map the instructions back to the visible Rust behavior. The probe source also covers projections, mutation, and byte ranges. The pinned release-codegen gate compares each probe against equivalent handwritten safe Rust, enforces narrow per-probe instruction budgets, and rejects extra calls, panic paths, allocation, or dynamic dispatch:

python3 ci/check-codegen.py

The stable contract is the optimized operation shape and absence of framework machinery—not fragile textual assembly snapshots tied to register allocation or labels.

⚠️ Deliberate limits

[!NOTE] wire-repr is a byte-representation compiler, not a universal schema VM or protocol runtime.

  • Repeated sequences and arbitrary conditional fields are not supported.
  • Prefix fields and byte ranges are sequential-only.
  • Absolute layouts remain fixed-width and explicit-offset-only.
  • The framework does not own checksums, semantic relationships, protocol state, I/O, or allocation policy.
  • Custom codecs remain explicit Rust types rather than runtime descriptors.

For the normative ownership, parsing, mutation, and extension rules, see ARCHITECTURE.md. Generated APIs and codec contracts are documented in the crate documentation.

📦 Workspace and contract

The repository contains two crates:

  • wire-repr — public no_std runtime facade and wire_repr! reexport;
  • wire-repr-macros — host-side procedural-macro compiler.

The target-runtime contract is Rust 1.91, edition 2024, empty default features, no allocation, no runtime dependencies, and unsafe_code = "deny".

📄 License

MIT © 2026 SilentBless. See LICENSE.