GS11N

GS11N is a Serialization crate which focus on Game development. By adding attributes, your rust codes will looks like scripts in Unity or UE

The minimum Rust version required to use GS11N is 1.57.0

#[derive(GS11N, Default)]
struct Orc {
  #[serialized(0)]
  health: usize,
  #[serialized(1)]
  mana: usize,
}

then serialize and deserialize it:

let encoder = Encoder::from(&orc);
let buffer = encoder.encode();

let decoder = Decoder::from_data(buffer);
let orc: Orc = decoder.decode().unwrap();

Notice that you struct type must implement trait Default for now, this restriction may be relaxed in the future.

GS11N use some ideas from Protobuf, which are:

1. Every field of a struct or enum can (not must) have an ID, which makes different versions of your types compatible.
2. Use varint encoding to reduce the size of the serialization.

Other features are:

1. You can serialize a dyn type, but need to give the type an type ID (check tests for a example)
2. Your dyn types can be compiled into a dynamic library, and load it later, this can be useful when debugging or code updating (for example a hot fix or a DLC).
3. Prefab Loader: you can offer a prefab loader when create a decoder, in which you can bind GS11N to your resources system.
4. You can use to serialize a type as a whole, usually some common types, to simplify the code:

#[derive(PartialEq, Debug, GS11N, Default)]
#[compact]
struct Color {
  r: u8,
  g: u8,
  b: u8,
};

notice that is you choose to do this, the encoded date will not compatible if fields are added or removed

if you do not want to generate serialization or deserialization code:

#[derive(PartialEq, Debug, GS11N, Default)]
#[no_deserialization]
struct Foo {
  str: &'static str,
}

Features in progressing:

1. Optional information about serialized data, can be useful for game editors.
2. Comments instead of attributes.
3. Readable format of (de)serialization data
4. Do not encode filed which values are default (this may need unstable feature)