refactor: Rename read_chunk to read_bytes and make it return just a Bytes

[rklaehn]

Description

Rename read_chunk to read_bytes and make it return just a Bytes. Also rename read_chunks to read_bytes_many. It already works with Bytes, so the name was a bit weird before.

We no longer return the offset. Getting the offset is now possible with bytes_read, but it is rare that people care about the offset for an ordered stream, so it seems justified to put this into a separate fn.

Not sure if people agree, but there was an inconsistency before between read_chunk (returns a Chunk, including offset) and read_chunks (fills a bunch of Bytes, no offset).

Also it doesn't seem useful to have Chunk at all for ordered streams. You usually don't care about the offset unless you are reading unordered streams. So I would like to confine Chunk usage to only the (now separate) unordered read API.

Breaking Changes

noq::RecvStream::read_chunk renamed to read_bytes and returns a Bytes.
noq::RecvStream::read_chunks renamedto read_bytes_many.

Notes & open questions

Note: while the other related PR is just renaming, this one is I think actually removing some weirdness.

Why does read_chunk give you an offset but read_chunks does not. And there is no way to get the offset if you need it if you use read_chunks.

[github-actions]

Performance Comparison Report

30b5c9cae211f2fdab097eb0c4ea3da755ce9969 - artifacts

No results available

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f43a5813b329d16d14ba1ea8147883f54268dd67 - artifacts

Raw Benchmarks (localhost)

Scenario	noq	upstream	Delta	CPU (avg/max)
large-single	5942.0 Mbps	7871.7 Mbps	-24.5%	96.4% / 122.0%
medium-concurrent	5535.5 Mbps	7633.5 Mbps	-27.5%	95.0% / 121.0%
medium-single	3930.1 Mbps	4189.3 Mbps	-6.2%	94.2% / 122.0%
small-concurrent	3922.0 Mbps	5047.3 Mbps	-22.3%	86.5% / 96.7%
small-single	3583.2 Mbps	4400.0 Mbps	-18.6%	85.4% / 95.8%

Netsim Benchmarks (network simulation)

Condition	noq	upstream	Delta
ideal	3205.0 Mbps	4038.4 Mbps	-20.6%
lan	791.7 Mbps	810.4 Mbps	-2.3%
lossy	69.8 Mbps	69.8 Mbps	~0%
wan	83.8 Mbps	83.8 Mbps	~0%

Summary

noq is 20.7% slower on average

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b9f118afbafe958c0f12a2bbb407ae5ed5e7abac - artifacts

Raw Benchmarks (localhost)

Scenario	noq	upstream	Delta	CPU (avg/max)
large-single	5478.2 Mbps	8080.0 Mbps	-32.2%	92.2% / 97.3%
medium-concurrent	5313.6 Mbps	7793.1 Mbps	-31.8%	89.8% / 96.4%
medium-single	4391.5 Mbps	4749.5 Mbps	-7.5%	98.1% / 136.0%
small-concurrent	3878.0 Mbps	5247.7 Mbps	-26.1%	89.8% / 98.6%
small-single	3472.2 Mbps	4715.3 Mbps	-26.4%	86.0% / 96.1%

Netsim Benchmarks (network simulation)

Condition	noq	upstream	Delta
ideal	3130.0 Mbps	N/A	N/A
lan	782.4 Mbps	N/A	N/A
lossy	55.9 Mbps	N/A	N/A
wan	83.8 Mbps	N/A	N/A

Summary

noq is 26.3% slower on average

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59dbb3cc108e92e44da4e51cfaa21b3e339631cd - artifacts

Raw Benchmarks (localhost)

Scenario	noq	upstream	Delta	CPU (avg/max)
large-single	6015.3 Mbps	7929.2 Mbps	-24.1%	98.1% / 99.4%
medium-concurrent	5822.8 Mbps	7782.0 Mbps	-25.2%	97.0% / 98.4%
medium-single	4088.6 Mbps	4677.0 Mbps	-12.6%	96.2% / 98.6%
small-concurrent	3941.7 Mbps	5213.4 Mbps	-24.4%	97.4% / 99.5%
small-single	3692.7 Mbps	4733.1 Mbps	-22.0%	96.4% / 98.6%

Netsim Benchmarks (network simulation)

Condition	noq	upstream	Delta
ideal	2905.3 Mbps	N/A	N/A
lan	782.6 Mbps	N/A	N/A
lossy	69.8 Mbps	N/A	N/A
wan	83.8 Mbps	N/A	N/A

Summary

noq is 22.3% slower on average

[github-actions]

Documentation for this PR has been generated and is available at: https://n0-computer.github.io/noq/pr/535/docs/noq/

Last updated: 2026-03-26T12:28:22Z