arrav

A sentinel-based, heapless, Vec-like type.

Arrays are great, because they do not require allocation. But arrays are fixed-size.

Slices are great, because you can make them smaller. But slices aren't Sized.

Vectors are great, because you can make them bigger. But vectors require allocation.

This type provides a type that acts like a vector but is represented exactly like an array. Unlike other array-backed vector-like types, but like C-style strings and arrays, Arrav uses a sentinel value to indicate unoccupied elements. This makes push and pop a little slower, but avoids having to store the length separately. The trade-off is that the sentinel value can no longer be stored in the array.

Arrav is intended for when you have a small but variable number of small values that you want to store compactly (e.g., because they're going to be stored in a large number of elements). This is also why the "search" for the sentinel value to determine the array's length (and thus for push and pop) is unlikely to matter in practice.

Unlike C-style strings and arrays, which use NULL as the sentinel, Arrav uses the max value of the type (like std::u8::MAX). This means that unless you are saturating the type's range, you won't even notice the sentinel.

License

Licensed under either of

• Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
• MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

at your option.

Contribution

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.