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Re: struct.el -- a package to encode/decode binary data
From: |
Stefan Monnier |
Subject: |
Re: struct.el -- a package to encode/decode binary data |
Date: |
Tue, 19 Mar 2002 07:34:36 -0500 |
> > While writing a package that sends and receives datagrams using the
> > new make-network-process functionality, I quickly found that I needed
> > to be able to encode and decode binary data structures, so I came up
> > with the following package (struct.el).
> >
> > I'd like to hear if something like this already exists, or if others
> > find it should be added to emacs (with more complete documentation of
> > course). [Also, the struct-pack function doesn't work with nested
> > data, but I'll fix that if there is an interest in this package].
>
> I think it would be a very useful addition to Emacs, but I have one
> comment about the implementation: I don't like (and that's an
> understatement!) the idea of using unibyte strings. I especially get
> shivers when I see string-make-unibyte and its ilk.
While I agree that unibyte strings and buffers are sources of all
sorts of problems, I think that storing binary data in multibyte strings
and buffers is generally wrong. It's perfectly fine to use the
eight-bit-control charset for the odd "unknown byte sequence",
but for raw binary data, it's just a waste of memory and CPU
resources.
Stefan
- struct.el -- a package to encode/decode binary data, Kim F. Storm, 2002/03/18
- Re: struct.el -- a package to encode/decode binary data, Kim F. Storm, 2002/03/19
- Re: struct.el -- a package to encode/decode binary data, Thien-Thi Nguyen, 2002/03/19
- Re: struct.el -- a package to encode/decode binary data, Richard Stallman, 2002/03/21
- Re: struct.el -- a package to encode/decode binary data, Eli Zaretskii, 2002/03/21
- Re: struct.el -- a package to encode/decode binary data, Kim F. Storm, 2002/03/21
- Re: struct.el -- a package to encode/decode binary data, Eli Zaretskii, 2002/03/21
- Re: struct.el -- a package to encode/decode binary data, Kim F. Storm, 2002/03/21
- Re: struct.el -- a package to encode/decode binary data, Stefan Monnier, 2002/03/21