go-rencode

go-rencode is a Go implementation of aresch/rencode.

The rencode logic is similar to bencode. For complex, heterogeneous data structures with many small elements, r-encodings take up significantly less space than b-encodings.

Usage

Example of encoder construction and use:

	b := bytes.Buffer{}
	e := rencode.NewEncoder(&b)
	
	err := e.Encode(100, true, "hello world", rencode.NewList(42, "nesting is awesome"), 3.14, rencode.Dictionary{})

You can use either specific methods to encode one of the supported types, or the interface-generic Encode() method.

Example of decoder construction:

	e := rencode.NewDecoder(&b)

The DecodeNext() method can be used to decode the next value from the rencode stream; however this method returns an interface{} while it is usually the norm that there is an expected type instead; in such cases, it is advised to use the Scan() method instead, which accepts a pointer to any of the supported types.

Example:

	var i int
	var b bool
	var s string
	var l rencode.List
	err := e.Scan(&i, &b, &s, &l)

You can also decode a dictionary directly into a struct:

	var s struct {
		Alpha int
		Beta  string
		Gamma float64 `rencode:"rencode-exclude"`
	}
	var d Dictionary
	d.Add("alpha", int(54123))
	d.Add("beta", "test")

	err := d.ToStruct(&s, "rencode-exclude")

In this example every field/value of the dictionary must be mapped to a struct field, except those tagged as rencode-exclude. This works as well with nested dictionaries mapping to nested structs.

Supported types

Only the following types are supported:

• rencode.List
• rencode.Dictionary
• big.Int (any integer with more than 63 bits of information)
• bool
• float32, float64
• []byte, string (all strings are stored as byte slices anyway)
• int8, int16, int32, int64, int
• uint8, uint16, uint32, uint64, uint

Accessory types

The rencode.List and rencode.Dictionary implement Python-alike features and can store values and keys of the simpler types enumerated above.

TODO

• try using reflect.Value instead of the generated code

Credits

• This Go version: gdm85
• Original Python version: Petru Paler, Connelly Barnes et al.
• Cython version: Andrew Resch

License

go-rencode is licensed under GNU GPL v2, see COPYING for license information.