Option to set the bytes used for encoding str?

[tejom]

Hey,

I thought it might interesting to use this library to decode a network protocol. The protocol Im working with uses one byte to determine the length of a string. Would be it be possible to have an option that sets the amount of bytes used when encoding or decoding?

Something I tried was this

fn deserialize_str<V>(self, visitor: V) -> Result<V::Value>
    where
        V: serde::de::Visitor<'de>,
{
    #[cfg(feature="len_u8")]
    let len: u8 = serde::Deserialize::deserialize(&mut *self)?;

    #[cfg(feature="len_usize")]
    let len: usize = serde::Deserialize::deserialize(&mut *self)?;

    self.read_bytes(len as u64)?;
    self.reader.forward_read_str(len as usize, visitor)
}

This struct

struct Point<'a> {
  x: u8,
  y: u8,
  s: &'a str,
}

would be encoded like this
[100,78,4,116,101,115,116]

instead of

[100, 78, 4, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 116, 101, 115, 116]

[TyOverby]

Nope, not possible. If you are decoding a network protocol, I'd recommend taking a look at Nom.