Varint is an alternative way of storing integer numbers.
Varints allow for the storage of larger integer types in a smaller amount of
space. It does this by storing an integer using the 7 lower bits and a flag
in the most-significant bit. This flag is set to 1 when more bytes should
be read. The groups of 7 bits are then added from the least-significant
group first.
By default, this library implements the:
- VarintReader trait on all types which implement std::io::Read
- VarintWriter trait on all types which implement std::io::Write
- Zigzag trait on all primitive signed and unsigned integer types
``rust
// to allow the use of theVarintWriter::write*varintfunctions
use varint_rs::VarintWriter;
// to allow the use of theVarintReader::read*varint` functions
use varint_rs::VarintReader;
// an example to use for the buffer use std::io::Cursor;
// create an i32 set to 300
let number: i32 = 300;
// create a buffer for the varint to be writen to
// an i32 can be 4 bytes maximum, so we pre-allocate the capacity
let mut buffer: Cursor
// now we can write the varint into the buffer
// 300 should only use 2 bytes instead of all 4
// the write_*_varint functions may return an std::io::Error
buffer.writei32varint(number).unwrap();
// we reset the cursor pos back to 0, this isn't varint stuff
buffer.set_position(0);
// now we can read the varint from the buffer
// we should read 300 which was the number we stored
// the read_*_varint functions may return an std::io::Error
let number: i32 = buffer.readi32varint().unwrap();
```
Much of this code is derived from the varint crate by Cruz Bishop. A massive thanks to them for the awesome alogrithms!