Wrapper types to enable optimized handling of &[u8] and Vec<u8>.
[dependencies] serde_bytes = "0.11"
Without specialization, Rust forces Serde to treat &[u8] just like any other slice and Vec<u8> just like any other vector. In reality this particular slice and vector can often be serialized and deserialized in a more efficient, compact representation in many formats.
When working with such a format, you can opt into specialized handling of &[u8] by wrapping it in serde_bytes::Bytes and Vec<u8> by wrapping it in serde_bytes::ByteBuf.
Additionally this crate supports the Serde with attribute to enable efficient handling of &[u8] and Vec<u8> in structs without needing a wrapper type.
use serde::{Deserialize, Serialize}; #[derive(Deserialize, Serialize)] struct Efficient<'a> { #[serde(with = "serde_bytes")] bytes: &'a [u8], #[serde(with = "serde_bytes")] byte_buf: Vec<u8>, }