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Feature #18254

closed

Add an `offset` parameter to String#unpack and String#unpack1

Added by byroot (Jean Boussier) over 2 years ago. Updated over 2 years ago.

Status:
Closed
Assignee:
-
Target version:
-
[ruby-core:105660]

Description

When working with binary protocols it's common to have to first unpack some kind of header or type prefix, and then based on that unpack another part of the string.

For instance here's a code snippet from Dalli, the most common Memcached client:

while buf.bytesize - pos >= 24
  header = buf.slice(pos, 24)
  (key_length, _, body_length, cas) = header.unpack(KV_HEADER)

  if key_length == 0
    # all done!
    @multi_buffer = nil
    @position = nil
    @inprogress = false
    break

  elsif buf.bytesize - pos >= 24 + body_length
    flags = buf.slice(pos + 24, 4).unpack1("N")
    key = buf.slice(pos + 24 + 4, key_length)
    value = buf.slice(pos + 24 + 4 + key_length, body_length - key_length - 4) if body_length - key_length - 4 > 0

    pos = pos + 24 + body_length

    begin
      values[key] = [deserialize(value, flags), cas]
    rescue DalliError
    end

  else
    # not enough data yet, wait for more
    break
  end
end
@position = pos

Proposal

If unpack and unpack1 had an offset: parameter, it would allow this kind of code to extract the fields it needs without allocating and copying as much strings, e.g.:

flags = buf.slice(pos + 24, 4).unpack1("N")

could be:

buf.unpack1("N", offset: pos + 24)
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