Module serde Copy item path

Support for serde integration. Enable this with the serde feature.

To encode/decode type that implement serde’s trait, you can use:

• borrow_decode_from_slice
• decode_from_slice
• encode_into_slice
• encode_to_vec

For interop with bincode’s Decode/Encode, you can use:

• Compat
• BorrowCompat

For interop with bincode’s derive feature, you can use the #[bincode(with_serde)] attribute on each field that implements serde’s traits.

#[derive(Serialize, Deserialize)]
pub struct SerdeType {
    // ...
}

#[derive(Decode, Encode)]
pub struct StructWithSerde {
    #[bincode(with_serde)]
    pub serde: SerdeType,
}

#[derive(Decode, Encode)]
pub enum EnumWithSerde {
    Unit(#[bincode(with_serde)] SerdeType),
    Struct {
        #[bincode(with_serde)]
        serde: SerdeType,
    },
}

§Known issues

Because bincode is a format without meta data, there are several known issues with serde’s attributes. Please do not use any of the following attributes if you plan on using bincode, or use bincode’s own derive macros.

• #[serde(flatten)]
• #[serde(skip)]
• #[serde(skip_deserializing)]
• #[serde(skip_serializing)]
• #[serde(skip_serializing_if = "path")]
• #[serde(tag = "...")]
• #[serde(untagged)]

Using any of the above attributes can and will cause issues with bincode and will result in lost data. Consider using bincode’s own derive macro instead.

§Why move away from serde?

Serde is a great library, but it has some issues that makes us want to be decoupled from serde:

• The issues documented above with attributes.
• Serde has chosen to not have a MSRV (source). We think MSRV is important, bincode 1 still compiles with rust 1.18.
• Before serde we had rustc-serializer. Serde has more than replaced rustc-serializer, but we can imagine a future where serde is replaced by something else.
• We believe that less dependencies is better, and that you should be able to choose your own dependencies. If you disable all features, bincode 2 only has 1 dependency. (unty, a micro crate we manage ourselves)

note: just because we’re making serde an optional dependency, it does not mean we’re dropping support for serde. Serde will still be fully supported, we’re just giving you the option to not use it.