[erlang-questions] bit syntax feature request

[Christian S]

I knew I had seen this request before:
http://www.erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/2006-July/021430.html

Some interesting questions are raised in the thread.


2007/7/28, Serge Aleynikov <saleyn@REDACTED>:
> When parsing some protocols I run into cases when I needed to convert
> parts of a binary to strings (i.e. lists).  Unfortunately current bit
> syntax expressions don't support Value:Size/string or Value:Size/list types:
>
> Ei = Value |
>       Value:Size |
>       Value/TypeSpecifierList |
>       Value:Size/TypeSpecifierList
>
> Type = integer | float | binary
>      The default is integer.
>
>
> Example:
>
> I need to parse an integer, and string from a binary:
>
> 1> <<X:16/integer, S1:3/binary, _/binary>> = <<1,2,$a,$b,$c,$d,3,4>>.
> <<1,2,97,98,99,100,3,4>>
> 2> S = binary_to_list(S1).
> "abc"
>
> what I'd like to be able to do is:
>
> 1> <<X:16/integer, S:3/string, _/binary>> = <<1,2,$a,$b,$c,$d,3,4>>.
> <<1,2,97,98,99,100,3,4>>
>
> 2> io:format("~p, ~p\n", [X, S]).
> 258, "abc".
>
> When most parts of the binary are strings, it becomes quite verbose to
> introduce many binary_to_list/1 calls and diminishes the value of
> pattern matching syntax.
>
> Any particular reason this is not currently implemented?  If not, how
> hard would it be to add such a feature?
>
> Serge
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