BitByteData

A Swift framework with classes for reading and writing bits and bytes.

Installation

BitByteData can be integrated into your project using Swift Package Manager, CocoaPods or Carthage.

Swift Package Manager

To install using SPM, add BitByteData to you package dependencies and specify it as a dependency for your target, e.g.:

import PackageDescription

let package = Package(
    name: "PackageName",
    dependencies: [
        .package(url: "https://github.com/tsolomko/BitByteData.git",
                 from: "1.4.0")
    ],
    targets: [
        .target(
            name: "TargetName",
            dependencies: ["BitByteData"]
        )
    ]
)

More details you can find in Swift Package Manager's Documentation.

CocoaPods

Add pod 'BitByteData', '~> 1.4' and use_frameworks! lines to your Podfile.

To complete installation, run pod install.

Carthage

Important: Only Swift 5.x is supported when installing BitByteData via Carthage.

Add to your Cartfile github "tsolomko/BitByteData" ~> 1.4.

Then run carthage update.

Finally, drag and drop BitByteData.framework from Carthage/Build folder into the "Embedded Binaries" section on your targets' "General" tab in Xcode.

Usage

Use ByteReader class to read bytes. For reading bits there are two classes: LsbBitReader and MsbBitReader, which implement BitReader protocol for two bit-numbering schemes ("LSB 0" and "MSB 0" correspondingly). Both LsbBitReader and MsbBitReader classes inherit from ByteReader so you can also use them to read bytes (but they must be aligned, see documentation for more details).

Writing bits is implemented in two classes LsbBitWriter and MsbBitWriter (again, for two bit-numbering schemes). They both conform to BitWriter protocol.

Note: All readers and writers aren't structs, but classes intentionally to make it easier to pass them as arguments to functions and to eliminate unnecessary copying and inouts.

Documentation

Every function or type of BitByteData's public API is documented. This documentation can be found at its own website.

Contributing

Whether you find a bug, have a suggestion, idea, feedback or something else, please create an issue on GitHub.

If you'd like to contribute, please create a pull request on GitHub.

Note: If you are considering working on BitByteData, please note that Xcode project (BitByteData.xcodeproj) was created manually and you shouldn't use swift package generate-xcodeproj command.

Performance and benchmarks

One of the most important goals of BitByteData's development is high speed performance. To help achieve this goal there are benchmarks for every function in the project as well as a handy command-line tool, benchmarks.py, which helps to run, show, and compare benchmarks and their results.

If you are considering contributing to the project please make sure that:

1. Every new function has also a new benchmark added.
2. Every other change to any existing function doesn't introduce performance regressions, or, at the very least, these regressions are small and such performance tradeoff is necessary and justifiable.

Finally, please note that any meaningful comparison can be made only between benchmarks run on the same hardware and software.