SmolVec

SmolVec is a lightweight vector implementation with small-vector optimization for Rust, providing excellent performance for small collections while maintaining API compatibility with the standard Vec<T>.

Features

• Stores small arrays inline, avoiding heap allocation for small vectors
• Fully API compatible with standard Vec<T>
• Optimized for performance and memory efficiency with small collections
• Seamlessly switches to heap allocation for larger collections

Performance

Based on our benchmarks:

• SmolVec is about 23 times faster than std::Vec for small push operations
• SmolVec is about 22 times faster than std::Vec for small pop operations
• For larger collections (1000+ elements), std::Vec outperforms SmolVec in push operations

These results demonstrate that SmolVec is particularly efficient for use cases involving small collections or frequent creation and destruction of vectors.

Usage

Add this to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
smolvec = "1.0.0"

Then, in your Rust code:

use smolvec::SmolVec;

fn main() {
    let mut vec = SmolVec::new();
    vec.push(1);
    vec.push(2);
    vec.push(3);
    println!("Vector: {:?}", vec);
    
    // SmolVec implements standard Vec methods
    vec.pop();
    vec.extend([4, 5, 6].iter().cloned());
    println!("Modified vector: {:?}", vec);
}

When to Use SmolVec

SmolVec is ideal for scenarios where:

• You frequently create and destroy small vectors
• You work with vectors that often contain just a few elements
• You want to optimize memory usage for collections that are usually small but can occasionally grow larger

For consistently large collections, consider using the standard Vec<T> instead.

Documentation

For full documentation, including all available methods and their usage, run cargo doc --open after adding SmolVec to your project dependencies.

Benchmarking

To run the benchmarks yourself:

1. Clone the repository
2. Run cargo bench

This will execute the benchmark suite and provide detailed performance comparisons between SmolVec and std::Vec.

License

This project is licensed under

• MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

at your option.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request. Here are some ways you can contribute:

• Implement new features
• Improve documentation
• Report bugs
• Suggest improvements

Before making a significant change, please open an issue to discuss your proposed changes and ensure they align with the project's goals.