libdd-tinybytes

A lightweight alternative to bytes::Bytes providing immutable, reference-counted byte buffers with zero-copy cloning and slicing.

Overview

libdd-tinybytes provides an immutable byte buffer type similar to bytes::Bytes with a focus on simplicity and AsRef<[u8]> support. It uses reference counting to enable efficient zero-copy operations.

Types

Bytes

An immutable byte buffer that supports:

• Zero-copy cloning: Creating new Bytes instances shares the underlying buffer through reference counting
• Zero-copy slicing: Extracting subslices without copying the underlying data
• Static buffers: Efficient handling of &'static [u8] without reference counting overhead
• Thread safety: Implements Send + Sync for safe use across threads
• AsRef implementation: Directly usable as &[u8]

BytesString

A UTF-8 validated string type built on top of Bytes (enabled with the bytes_string feature):

• UTF-8 validation: Ensures data is valid UTF-8 at construction time
• String interface: Provides AsRef<str> and Borrow<str> implementations
• Zero-copy operations: Inherits efficient cloning and slicing from Bytes

Implementation Details

The crate uses a custom reference counting implementation optimized for its specific use case, tracking only strong references. Individual deallocations do not free memory; instead, memory is reclaimed when the last reference is dropped.

Feature Flags

• bytes_string: Enable the BytesString UTF-8 validated string type
• serialization: Enable serde support for serialization

License

Copyright 2024-Present Datadog, Inc. https://www.datadoghq.com/

SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0