rkyv (archive) is a zero-copy deserialization framework for Rust

Resources

Learning Materials

• The rkyv book covers the motivation, architecture, and major features of rkyv
• The rkyv discord is a great place to get help with specific issues and meet other people using rkyv

Documentation

• rkyv, the core library
• rkyv_dyn, which adds trait object support to rkyv
• rkyv_typename, a type naming library

Benchmarks

• The rust serialization benchmark is a shootout style benchmark comparing many rust serialization solutions. It includes special benchmarks for zero-copy serialization solutions like rkyv.

Sister Crates

• bytecheck, which rkyv uses for validation
• ptr_meta, which rkyv uses for pointer manipulation
• rend, which rkyv uses for endian-agnostic features

Example

use rkyv::{
    archived_root,
    ser::{serializers::AllocSerializer, Serializer},
    Archive, Deserialize, Infallible, Serialize,
};

#[derive(Archive, Deserialize, Serialize, Debug, PartialEq)]
struct Test {
    int: u8,
    string: String,
    option: Option<Vec<i32>>,
}

let value = Test {
    int: 42,
    string: "hello world".to_string(),
    option: Some(vec![1, 2, 3, 4]),
};

let mut serializer = AllocSerializer::<256>::default();
serializer.serialize_value(&value).unwrap();
let bytes = serializer.into_serializer().into_inner();

let archived = unsafe { archived_root::<Test>(&bytes[..]) };
assert_eq!(archived.int, value.int);
assert_eq!(archived.string, value.string);
assert_eq!(archived.option, value.option);

let deserialized: Test = archived.deserialize(&mut Infallible).unwrap()
assert_eq!(deserialized, value);

Thanks

Thanks to all the sponsors that keep development sustainable. Special thanks to the following sponsors for going above and beyond supporting rkyv:

Platinum Sponsors

Dusk Network is the first privacy blockchain for financial applications. Our mission is to enable any size enterprise to collaborate at scale, meet compliance requirements, and ensure that transaction data remains confidential.

Bronze Sponsors