# ZON
### The Zero-Overhead Notation for High-Performance Systems.
## The Problem
Data serialization implies a cost. Formats like JSON force CPUs to burn cycles parsing text, allocating strings, and managing garbage, turning every data access into a computation. For high-frequency systems, this latency is unacceptable.
**ZON** changes the paradigm. It maps files directly to memory. By using pointer-less relative offsets and strict 64-byte alignment, the on-disk format *is* the in-memory representation. It is cache-line friendly, mmap-ready, and requires zero parsing.
```text
JSON (Traditional):
[Disk] -> [Read String] -> [Parse Text] -> [Allocate Object] -> [Memory] 🐢
ZON (Zero-Overhead):
[Disk] ------------------ (mmap) -------------------------> [Memory] 🚀
```
## The Evidence
Benchmarks comparing ZON against standard JSON deserialization for a composite game entity (`Player` struct):
| **JSON** | ~117.43 ns | ~8.5 M ops/s | 1x |
| **ZON** | **~18.83 ns** | **~53.1 M ops/s** | **6.2x** |
*> Benchmark conducted on a strictly aligned composite workload.*
## Quick Start
### Usage
```rust
use zon_format::{ZonWriter, ZonReader};
fn main() {
// 1. Write Data
let mut writer = ZonWriter::new();
// Write a string (returns offset to length prefix)
let name_offset = writer.write_string("Hero");
// Write an integer
let score_offset = writer.write_u32(9001);
// Link the root of the file to the name
writer.set_root(name_offset);
// 2. Read Data (Zero-Copy)
let buffer = writer.as_bytes();
let reader = ZonReader::new(buffer).expect("Valid ZON file");
// Read the root pointer (stored at offset 8 in header)
let root_ptr = reader.read_u32(8).unwrap();
// Resolve the string directly from the buffer without allocation
let name = reader.read_string(root_ptr).unwrap();
assert_eq!(name, "Hero");
}
```
## Philosophy
**Data should not be parsed. It should be read.**
ZON is built for systems where latency is the primary constraint:
* High-Frequency Trading (HFT)
* Game Engines (Entity Component Systems)
* Large Scale Distributed Systems
By eliminating the transformation layer between disk and memory, we free the CPU to do actual work.
## Installation
Add to your `Cargo.toml`:
```toml
[dependencies]
zon-format = "0.1.0"
```