Byte Slab

Byte Slab is a crate that provides a pool or slab of bytes, which can be granted in fixed-size chunks. It is similar to heapless::Pool, however it also allows conversion of the allocations (SlabBoxes) into shared, reference counted objects (SlabArcs).

Currently, it maintains its free list as an MPMC queue, though that is an implementation detail that may change. This implementation is convenient, but not particularly memory-dense.

The slab is statically allocated, and the size of each Box, as well as the total number of Boxes available is selected through compile time const values.

Byte Slab is intended to provide boxes suitable for using as DMA buffers on bare metal embedded systems without a general purpose allocator. All allocations are failable.

Main components

The byte slab crate is made up of the following primary elements:

• BSlab - a Byte Slab. This struct represents the storage of all boxes and their related metadata.
• SlabBox - An owned allocation from the BSlab, which may be read or written to (exclusively) by the owner. A SlabBox may be converted into a SlabArc. The underlying memory is freed for reuse automatically when the Box has been dropped.
• SlabArc - A reference counted allocation from the BSlab, obtained by consuming a SlabBox. As the underlying allocation may be shared, a SlabArc does not allow for the contents to be modified. SlabArcs may be cloned (which increases the reference count), allowing for multiple (immutable) access to the same data. The underlying memory is freed for reuse automatically when the reference count reaches zero.
• SlabSliceArc - a reference counted view of a SlabArc. This is used to provide a view onto a portion of a SlabArc, without sharing the entire allocation. It shares the same reference count as the underlying SlabArc, meaning the underlying SlabArc will not be freed if there are only SlabSliceArcs remaining. The underlying memory is freed for reuse automatically when the reference count reaches zero.
• ManagedArcSlab - a convenience type that may contain EITHER a borrowed &[u8] slice, or a SlabSliceArc.