Bytes is a useful tool for managing multiple slices into the same region
of memory, and the other things it used to have been removed to reduce
complexity. The exact strategy for managing the multiple references is
no longer hard-coded, but instead backing by a customizable vtable.
- Removed ability to mutate the underlying memory from the `Bytes` type.
- Removed the "inline" (SBO) mechanism in `Bytes`. The reduces a large
amount of complexity, and improves performance when accessing the
slice of bytes, since a branch is no longer needed to check if the
data is inline.
- Removed `Bytes` knowledge of `BytesMut` (`BytesMut` may grow that
knowledge back at a future point.)
To make the library work as `no_std` we add an `std` feature which
is on by default. When it is off, we compile as `no_std` and make
parts of the API that require `std::io` conditional on the `std`
feature.
As consequence Buf::collect is removed as well, which is replaced with `Buf::into_bytes`. The advantage of `Buf::into_bytes` is that it can be optimized in cases where converting a `T: Buf` into a `Bytes` instance is efficient.
There's no reason the user should be forced to wrap it in BufReader in
case the trait is needed, because the Reader has all the bits for
supporting it naturally.
The property the Buff and BuffMut can return shorter slice is quite an
important detail. Nevertheless, while it is mentioned in the
documentation, the wording makes it relatively easy to overlook. This
tries to bring more attention to it.
With this if foo is a mutable slice, it is possible to do
foo.into_buf().put_u32_le(42);
Before this patch into_buf would create a Cursor<&'a [u8]> and it
would not be possible to write into it.
Sean McArthur