decstr: IEEE 754 decimal bitstrings
This library implements an IEEE 754 decimal floating point compatible encoding in pure Rust. It's intended to support the exchange and storage of arbitrary precision numbers in a consistent and portable way.
This library does not implement decimal arithmetic. It only supports conversion.
The source is written to be explorable for anybody interested in understanding the IEEE 754 standards for decimal floating points, and hackable for anybody wanting to adapt parts of the implementation for their own needs.
This library is quite new. It's functional, but not optimized and likely contains bugs.
If you've ever used Rust's f64, C#'s double, or JavaScript's Number, you've been using an implementation of IEEE 754 binary (base-2) floating points. Recent versions of the same standard also specify decimal (base-10) floating point formats. They're not quite as upiquitous as the binary ones, but interesting in their own right.
If you don't have access to a copy of the IEEE 754 standard, you can check out the open General Decimal Arithmetic standard. It's compatible with IEEE 754.