anybuf

A minimal, zero dependency protobuf encoder and decoder to encode/decode anything. It is designed to create the value bytes of a protobuf Any, hence the name.

Due to its low level design, anybuf allows you to do things wrong in many ways and you should have a solid understanding of how protobuf encoding works in general to better understand the API.

The crate anybuf is split in two major components:

• anybuf::Anybuf is a protobuf encoder
• anybuf::Bufany is a protobuf decoder

Non goals

• protobuf 2 things
• Field sorting
• Groups support (deprecated, see https://protobuf.dev/programming-guides/proto2/#groups)

Supported

• Varint fields (bool/uint32/uint64/sint32/sint64/int32/int64)
• Variable length fields (string/bytes)
• Nested messages: Just append an Anybuf instance
• Repeated (bool/uint32/uint64/sint32/sint64/int32/int64/string/bytes/messages)

Not yet supported

• Fixed length types
• Packed encoding for repeated fields
• Maps support (but you can use the equivalent encoding via repeated messages)

How to use it

Encoding

use anybuf::Anybuf;let data = Anybuf::new().append_uint64(1,4)// field number 1 gets value 4.append_string(2,"hello")// field number 2 gets a string.append_bytes(3,b"hello")// field number 3 gets bytes.append_message(4,&Anybuf::new().append_bool(3,true))// field 4 gets a message.append_repeated_uint64(5,&[23,56,192])// field number 5 is a repeated uint64.into_vec();// done// data is now a serialized protobuf document

Decoding

use anybuf::Bufany;let deserialized = Bufany::deserialize(&data).unwrap();// data from abovelet id = deserialized.uint64(1).unwrap();// 4let title = deserialized.string(2).unwrap();// "hello"

no_std support

Since version 0.5.0 there is a default std feature. If you remove that, the library is built with no_std support. As the anybuf maintainers do not require no_std support this is provided at a best effort basis and might be broken.

[dependencies]
anybuf = { version = "0.5.0", default-features = false }