binary

Returns the byte at position Pos (zero-based) in binary Subject as an integer. If Pos >= byte_size(Subject), a badarg exception is raised.

Same as bin_to_list(Subject, {0,byte_size(Subject)}).

Converts Subject to a list of byte()s, each representing the value of one byte. part() denotes which part of the binary() to convert.

Example:

1> binary:bin_to_list(<<"erlang">>, {1,3}).
"rla"
%% or [114,108,97] in list notation.

If PosLen in any way references outside the binary, a badarg exception is raised.

Same as bin_to_list(Subject, {Pos, Len}).

Builds an internal structure representing a compilation of a search pattern, later to be used in functions match/3, matches/3, split/3, or replace/4. The cp() returned is guaranteed to be a tuple() to allow programs to distinguish it from non-precompiled search patterns.

When a list of binaries is specified, it denotes a set of alternative binaries to search for. For example, if [<<"functional">>,<<"programming">>] is specified as Pattern, this means either <<"functional">> or <<"programming">>". The pattern is a set of alternatives; when only a single binary is specified, the set has only one element. The order of alternatives in a pattern is not significant.

The list of binaries used for search alternatives must be flat and proper.

If Pattern is not a binary or a flat proper list of binaries with length > 0, a badarg exception is raised.

Same as copy(Subject, 1).

Creates a binary with the content of Subject duplicated N times.

This function always creates a new binary, even if N = 1. By using copy/1 on a binary referencing a larger binary, one can free up the larger binary for garbage collection.

If N < 0, a badarg exception is raised.

Same as decode_unsigned(Subject, big).

Converts the binary digit representation, in big endian or little endian, of a positive integer in Subject to an Erlang integer().

Example:

1> binary:decode_unsigned(<<169,138,199>>,big).
11111111

Same as encode_unsigned(Unsigned, big).

Converts a positive integer to the smallest possible representation in a binary digit representation, either big endian or little endian.

Example:

1> binary:encode_unsigned(11111111, big).
<<169,138,199>>

Returns the first byte of binary Subject as an integer. If the size of Subject is zero, a badarg exception is raised.

Returns the last byte of binary Subject as an integer. If the size of Subject is zero, a badarg exception is raised.

Works exactly as erlang:list_to_binary/1, added for completeness.

Returns the length of the longest common prefix of the binaries in list Binaries.

Example:

1> binary:longest_common_prefix([<<"erlang">>, <<"ergonomy">>]).
2
2> binary:longest_common_prefix([<<"erlang">>, <<"perl">>]).
0

If Binaries is not a flat list of binaries, a badarg exception is raised.

Returns the length of the longest common suffix of the binaries in list Binaries.

Example:

1> binary:longest_common_suffix([<<"erlang">>, <<"fang">>]).
3
2> binary:longest_common_suffix([<<"erlang">>, <<"perl">>]).
0

If Binaries is not a flat list of binaries, a badarg exception is raised.

Same as match(Subject, Pattern, []).

Searches for the first occurrence of Pattern in Subject and returns the position and length.

The function returns {Pos, Length} for the binary in Pattern, starting at the lowest position in Subject.

Example:

1> binary:match(<<"abcde">>, [<<"bcde">>, <<"cd">>],[]).
{1,4}

Even though <<"cd">> ends before <<"bcde">>, <<"bcde">> begins first and is therefore the first match. If two overlapping matches begin at the same position, the longest is returned.

Summary of the options:

{scope, {Start, Length}}

Only the specified part is searched. Return values still have offsets from the beginning of Subject. A negative Length is allowed as described in section Data Types in this manual.

If none of the strings in Pattern is found, the atom nomatch is returned.

For a description of Pattern, see function compile_pattern/1.

If {scope, {Start,Length}} is specified in the options such that Start > size of Subject, Start + Length < 0 or Start + Length > size of Subject, a badarg exception is raised.

Same as matches(Subject, Pattern, []).

As match/2, but Subject is searched until exhausted and a list of all non-overlapping parts matching Pattern is returned (in order).

The first and longest match is preferred to a shorter, which is illustrated by the following example:

1> binary:matches(<<"abcde">>,
                  [<<"bcde">>,<<"bc">>,<<"de">>],[]).
[{1,4}]

The result shows that <<"bcde">> is selected instead of the shorter match <<"bc">> (which would have given raise to one more match, <<"de">>). This corresponds to the behavior of POSIX regular expressions (and programs like awk), but is not consistent with alternative matches in re (and Perl), where instead lexical ordering in the search pattern selects which string matches.

If none of the strings in a pattern is found, an empty list is returned.

For a description of Pattern, see compile_pattern/1. For a description of available options, see match/3.

If {scope, {Start,Length}} is specified in the options such that Start > size of Subject, Start + Length < 0 or Start + Length is > size of Subject, a badarg exception is raised.

Extracts the part of binary Subject described by PosLen.

A negative length can be used to extract bytes at the end of a binary:

1> Bin = <<1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10>>.
2> binary:part(Bin, {byte_size(Bin), -5}).
<<6,7,8,9,10>>

If PosLen in any way references outside the binary, a badarg exception is raised.

Same as part(Subject, {Pos, Len}).

If a binary references a larger binary (often described as being a subbinary), it can be useful to get the size of the referenced binary. This function can be used in a program to trigger the use of copy/1. By copying a binary, one can dereference the original, possibly large, binary that a smaller binary is a reference to.

Example:

store(Binary, GBSet) ->
  NewBin =
      case binary:referenced_byte_size(Binary) of
          Large when Large > 2 * byte_size(Binary) ->
             binary:copy(Binary);
          _ ->
             Binary
      end,
  gb_sets:insert(NewBin,GBSet).

In this example, we chose to copy the binary content before inserting it in gb_sets:set() if it references a binary more than twice the data size we want to keep. Of course, different rules apply when copying to different programs.

Binary sharing occurs whenever binaries are taken apart. This is the fundamental reason why binaries are fast, decomposition can always be done with O(1) complexity. In rare circumstances this data sharing is however undesirable, why this function together with copy/1 can be useful when optimizing for memory use.

Example of binary sharing:

1> A = binary:copy(<<1>>, 100).
<<1,1,1,1,1 ...
2> byte_size(A).
100
3> binary:referenced_byte_size(A).
100
4> <<B:10/binary, C:90/binary>> = A.
<<1,1,1,1,1 ...
5> {byte_size(B), binary:referenced_byte_size(B)}.
{10,10}
6> {byte_size(C), binary:referenced_byte_size(C)}.
{90,100}

In the above example, the small binary B was copied while the larger binary C references binary A.

Same as replace(Subject, Pattern, Replacement,[]).

Constructs a new binary by replacing the parts in Subject matching Pattern with the content of Replacement.

If the matching subpart of Subject giving raise to the replacement is to be inserted in the result, option {insert_replaced, InsPos} inserts the matching part into Replacement at the specified position (or positions) before inserting Replacement into Subject.

Example:

1> binary:replace(<<"abcde">>,<<"b">>,<<"[]">>, [{insert_replaced,1}]).
<<"a[b]cde">>
2> binary:replace(<<"abcde">>,[<<"b">>,<<"d">>],<<"[]">>,[global,{insert_replaced,1}]).
<<"a[b]c[d]e">>
3> binary:replace(<<"abcde">>,[<<"b">>,<<"d">>],<<"[]">>,[global,{insert_replaced,[1,1]}]).
<<"a[bb]c[dd]e">>
4> binary:replace(<<"abcde">>,[<<"b">>,<<"d">>],<<"[-]">>,[global,{insert_replaced,[1,2]}]).
<<"a[b-b]c[d-d]e">>

If any position specified in InsPos > size of the replacement binary, a badarg exception is raised.

Options global and {scope, part()} work as for split/3. The return type is always a binary().

For a description of Pattern, see compile_pattern/1.

Same as split(Subject, Pattern, []).

Splits Subject into a list of binaries based on Pattern. If option global is not specified, only the first occurrence of Pattern in Subject gives rise to a split.

The parts of Pattern found in Subject are not included in the result.

Example:

1> binary:split(<<1,255,4,0,0,0,2,3>>, [<<0,0,0>>,<<2>>],[]).
[<<1,255,4>>, <<2,3>>]
2> binary:split(<<0,1,0,0,4,255,255,9>>, [<<0,0>>, <<255,255>>],[global]).
[<<0,1>>,<<4>>,<<9>>]

Summary of options:

{scope, part()}

Works as in match/3 and matches/3. Notice that this only defines the scope of the search for matching strings, it does not cut the binary before splitting. The bytes before and after the scope are kept in the result. See the example below.

trim

Removes trailing empty parts of the result (as does trim in re:split/3.

trim_all

Removes all empty parts of the result.

global

Repeats the split until Subject is exhausted. Conceptually option global makes split work on the positions returned by matches/3, while it normally works on the position returned by match/3.

Example of the difference between a scope and taking the binary apart before splitting:

1> binary:split(<<"banana">>, [<<"a">>],[{scope,{2,3}}]).
[<<"ban">>,<<"na">>]
2> binary:split(binary:part(<<"banana">>,{2,3}), [<<"a">>],[]).
[<<"n">>,<<"n">>]

The return type is always a list of binaries that are all referencing Subject. This means that the data in Subject is not copied to new binaries, and that Subject cannot be garbage collected until the results of the split are no longer referenced.

For a description of Pattern, see compile_pattern/1.