Crate loam

Loam

This is a Rust library for storing and querying tree-like data structures in files. The motivating project is rosewood, which stores geospatial data in an R-Tree.

Loam allows you to store anything which implements Serialize. Data is appended to the end of the file and never modified once written. This enables the use of mmap to read files without the risk of undefined behavior.

Write Example

fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    let mut writer = loam::Writer::new("../target/test.loam")?;
    let id = writer.push(&"Don't forget me!")?;
    writer.checkpoint(id)?;
    Ok(())
}

Read Example

fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    let reader = loam::Reader::new("../target/test.loam")?;
    let id = reader.root()?;
    let msg: String = reader.lookup(id)?;
    dbg!(msg);
    Ok(())
}

File Format

A loam file starts with a Header, followed by a series of Chunks.

Header

The header is fixed-length ASCII text (8 bytes).

Field	Value	Bytes
Magic	loam	4
Major Version	digits: 00	2
Minor Version	digits: 00	2

Chunks

A chunk consists of these fields, serialized using bincode:

Field	Description
Length	Number of bytes in Data (variable-size integer)
Data	Serialized chunk data
Checksum †	CRC-32 of Length + Data (fixed-size integer)

An Id is the file offset of a chunk. It can be used to Deserialize the Data field.

† Checksums are only included if the crc feature is enabled.

Checkpoint

A checkpoint is a special chunk containing a fixed-size u64 of the root Id. A file must always end with a checkpoint, to allow readers to lookup the root without needing to scan the entire file.

Structs

Id

Chunk Identifier

Reader

Reader for loam files

Writer

Writer for loam files

Enums

Error

Errors for reading or writing loam files

Type Aliases

Result

Result for reading or writing loam files