Raw data structure serializer

Description

A small and lightweight C only (C90 only) library that allows fast serialization of arbitrary C data types graphs. (The accent is on **small** and **efficient**.)

The library provides the following features:

serialization:

it takes as input an arbitrary pointer (that could point to a structure, union, array, value (like int, char), another pointer, and any other combination thereof);
it is given a memory block that should be used to store the output;
it encodes the given data structure graph in that memory block;

deserialization:

the converse of the above;

memory in-place execution:

for serialization: given that all the data structure graph backing memory forms already a compact memory block (i.e. the pointers aren't "sprinkled" all over the memory address space), the serialization should be able to reuse the same memory;
for deserialization: the converse of the above (i.e. the memory backing the deserialized data structure graph should be inside the memory block given as input for the deserialization);

Use cases

embedded devices:

MPI-based applications:

memory mapped files holding large constant data:

input / output data encoding:

data structure graph validation:

Requirements and constraints

C90 only compliant:

lightweight library:

memory in-place execution:

not relying on compile time code generation:

Assumptions

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Proposed solution

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Issues

security...
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