Struct serde_with::Bytes

pub struct Bytes;

Optimized handling of owned and borrowed byte representations.

Serialization of byte sequences like &[u8] or Vec<u8> is quite inefficient since each value will be serialized individually. This converter type optimizes the serialization and deserialization.

This is a port of the serde_bytes crate making it compatible with the serde_as-annotation, which allows it to be used in more cases than provided by serde_bytes.

The type provides de/serialization for these types:

• [u8; N], not possible using serde_bytes
• &[u8; N], not possible using serde_bytes
• &[u8]
• Box<[u8; N]>, not possible using serde_bytes
• Box<[u8]>
• Vec<u8>
• Cow<'_, [u8]>
• Cow<'_, [u8; N]>, not possible using serde_bytes

Examples

#[serde_as]
#[derive(Deserialize, Serialize)]
struct Test<'a> {
    #[serde_as(as = "Bytes")]
    array: [u8; 15],
    #[serde_as(as = "Bytes")]
    boxed: Box<[u8]>,
    #[serde_as(as = "Bytes")]
    #[serde(borrow)]
    cow: Cow<'a, [u8]>,
    #[serde_as(as = "Bytes")]
    #[serde(borrow)]
    cow_array: Cow<'a, [u8; 15]>,
    #[serde_as(as = "Bytes")]
    vec: Vec<u8>,
}

let value = Test {
    array: b"0123456789ABCDE".clone(),
    boxed: b"...".to_vec().into_boxed_slice(),
    cow: Cow::Borrowed(b"FooBar"),
    cow_array: Cow::Borrowed(&[42u8; 15]),
    vec: vec![0x41, 0x61, 0x21],
};
let expected = r#"(
    array: "MDEyMzQ1Njc4OUFCQ0RF",
    boxed: "Li4u",
    cow: "Rm9vQmFy",
    cow_array: "KioqKioqKioqKioqKioq",
    vec: "QWEh",
)"#;

assert_eq!(expected, ron::ser::to_string_pretty(&value, pretty_config).unwrap());
assert_eq!(value, ron::from_str(&expected).unwrap());

Fully borrowed types can also be used but you’ll need a Deserializer that supports Serde’s 0-copy deserialization:

#[serde_as]
#[derive(Deserialize, Serialize)]
struct TestBorrows<'a> {
    #[serde_as(as = "Bytes")]
    #[serde(borrow)]
    array_buf: &'a [u8; 15],
    #[serde_as(as = "Bytes")]
    #[serde(borrow)]
    buf: &'a [u8],
}

let value = TestBorrows {
    array_buf: &[10u8; 15],
    buf: &[20u8, 21u8, 22u8],
};
let expected = r#"(
    array_buf: "CgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoK",
    buf: "FBUW",
)"#;

assert_eq!(expected, ron::ser::to_string_pretty(&value, pretty_config).unwrap());
// RON doesn't support borrowed deserialization of byte arrays

Alternative to BytesOrString

The Bytes can replace BytesOrString. Bytes is implemented for more types, which makes it better. The serialization behavior of Bytes differs from BytesOrString, therefore only deserialize_as should be used.

#[serde_as]
#[derive(Deserialize, serde::Serialize)]
struct Test {
    #[serde_as(deserialize_as = "Bytes")]
    from_bytes: Vec<u8>,
    #[serde_as(deserialize_as = "Bytes")]
    from_str: Vec<u8>,
}

// Different serialized values ...
let j = json!({
    "from_bytes": [70,111,111,45,66,97,114],
    "from_str": "Foo-Bar",
});

// can be deserialized ...
let test = Test {
    from_bytes: b"Foo-Bar".to_vec(),
    from_str: b"Foo-Bar".to_vec(),
};
assert_eq!(test, serde_json::from_value(j).unwrap());

// and serialization will always be a byte sequence
{
    "from_bytes": [70,111,111,45,66,97,114],
    "from_str": [70,111,111,45,66,97,114],
}

Trait Implementations

impl<'de> DeserializeAs<'de, &'de [u8]> for Bytes

fn deserialize_as<D>(deserializer: D) -> Result<&'de [u8], D::Error>

where D: Deserializer<'de>,

Deserialize this value from the given Serde deserializer.

impl<'de, const N: usize> DeserializeAs<'de, &'de [u8; N]> for Bytes

fn deserialize_as<D>(deserializer: D) -> Result<&'de [u8; N], D::Error>

where D: Deserializer<'de>,

Deserialize this value from the given Serde deserializer.

impl<'de, const N: usize> DeserializeAs<'de, [u8; N]> for Bytes

fn deserialize_as<D>(deserializer: D) -> Result<[u8; N], D::Error>

where D: Deserializer<'de>,

Deserialize this value from the given Serde deserializer.

impl<'de> DeserializeAs<'de, Box<[u8]>> for Bytes

fn deserialize_as<D>(deserializer: D) -> Result<Box<[u8]>, D::Error>

where D: Deserializer<'de>,

Deserialize this value from the given Serde deserializer.

impl<'de, const N: usize> DeserializeAs<'de, Box<[u8; N]>> for Bytes

fn deserialize_as<D>(deserializer: D) -> Result<Box<[u8; N]>, D::Error>

where D: Deserializer<'de>,

Deserialize this value from the given Serde deserializer.

impl<'de> DeserializeAs<'de, Cow<'de, [u8]>> for Bytes

fn deserialize_as<D>(deserializer: D) -> Result<Cow<'de, [u8]>, D::Error>

where D: Deserializer<'de>,

Deserialize this value from the given Serde deserializer.

impl<'de, const N: usize> DeserializeAs<'de, Cow<'de, [u8; N]>> for Bytes

fn deserialize_as<D>(deserializer: D) -> Result<Cow<'de, [u8; N]>, D::Error>

where D: Deserializer<'de>,

Deserialize this value from the given Serde deserializer.

impl<'de> DeserializeAs<'de, Vec<u8>> for Bytes

fn deserialize_as<D>(deserializer: D) -> Result<Vec<u8>, D::Error>

where D: Deserializer<'de>,

Deserialize this value from the given Serde deserializer.

impl SerializeAs<&[u8]> for Bytes

fn serialize_as<S>(bytes: &&[u8], serializer: S) -> Result<S::Ok, S::Error>

where S: Serializer,

Serialize this value into the given Serde serializer.

impl<const N: usize> SerializeAs<&[u8; N]> for Bytes

fn serialize_as<S>(bytes: &&[u8; N], serializer: S) -> Result<S::Ok, S::Error>

where S: Serializer,

Serialize this value into the given Serde serializer.

impl<const N: usize> SerializeAs<[u8; N]> for Bytes

fn serialize_as<S>(bytes: &[u8; N], serializer: S) -> Result<S::Ok, S::Error>

where S: Serializer,

Serialize this value into the given Serde serializer.

impl SerializeAs<Box<[u8]>> for Bytes

fn serialize_as<S>(bytes: &Box<[u8]>, serializer: S) -> Result<S::Ok, S::Error>

where S: Serializer,

Serialize this value into the given Serde serializer.

impl<const N: usize> SerializeAs<Box<[u8; N]>> for Bytes

fn serialize_as<S>( bytes: &Box<[u8; N]>, serializer: S ) -> Result<S::Ok, S::Error>

where S: Serializer,

Serialize this value into the given Serde serializer.

impl<'a> SerializeAs<Cow<'a, [u8]>> for Bytes

fn serialize_as<S>( bytes: &Cow<'a, [u8]>, serializer: S ) -> Result<S::Ok, S::Error>

where S: Serializer,

Serialize this value into the given Serde serializer.

impl<'a, const N: usize> SerializeAs<Cow<'a, [u8; N]>> for Bytes

fn serialize_as<S>( bytes: &Cow<'a, [u8; N]>, serializer: S ) -> Result<S::Ok, S::Error>

where S: Serializer,

Serialize this value into the given Serde serializer.

impl SerializeAs<Vec<u8>> for Bytes

fn serialize_as<S>(bytes: &Vec<u8>, serializer: S) -> Result<S::Ok, S::Error>

where S: Serializer,

Serialize this value into the given Serde serializer.