README-bitfield

> My only problem is with DEF-BITFIELD. All other BINARY-TYPES
> features are intuitive and easy to use.

Hi, you are right that DEF-BITFIELD is poorly documented. I think
that's because it's a bit complex and I'm not quite confident it is
the way it should be. Anyways, here are a couple of examples:

(define-bitfield r-info (u32)
              (((:enum :byte (8 0))
                 r-386-none     0
                 r-386-32       1
                 r-386-pc32     2
                 r-386-got32    3
                 r-386-plt32    4
                 r-386-copy     5
                 r-386-glob-dat 6
                 r-386-jmp-slot 7
                 r-386-relative 8
                 r-386-gotoff   9
                 r-386-gotpc    10)
                ((:numeric r-sym 24 8))))

This declares R-INFO to be an unsigned 32-bit number, divided into two
fields. The first field resides in bits 0-7, and is one of the values
r-386-xx. The second field is a numeric value that resides in bits
8-23. So this type R-INFO may for example have symbolic value
(r-386-pc32 (r-sym . 1)), which translates to a numeric value of
 (logior 2 1<<8)) = 258.

Another example:

(define-bitfield p-flags (u8)
                (((:bits)
                  pf-x 0
                  pf-w 1
                  pf-r 2)))

Here P-FLAGS has just one bit-field, where bit 0 is named PF-X, bit 1
is named PF-W etc. So the value (PF-X PF-R) maps to 5.

As you may see by now, DEF-BITFIELD divides a numeric base-type
(typically an unsigned integer) into a number of fields, where each
field is one of :BITS for bitmaps, :ENUM for an enumerated field
(takes an optional :BYTE <bytespec>), and finally :NUMERIC <byte-size>
<byte-pos> for a subfield that is a number.

Hope this helps.

-- 
Frode Vatvedt Fjeld