Piotr Karwasz created IO-882:
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Summary: Comprehensive integer reading utilities for both
endiannesses
Key: IO-882
URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/IO-882
Project: Commons IO
Issue Type: New Feature
Reporter: Piotr Karwasz
The {{EndianUtils}} class is very useful in Commons Compress and replaces a
number of earlier utility classes. However, some design aspects limit its ease
of use:
* *Confusing naming:*
The current “swapped” terminology is unintuitive, as it assumes users know
that the default (“unswapped”) byte order is big endian. This makes the API
harder to understand at a glance.
* *Missing big-endian counterparts:*
{{EndianUtils}} provides convenience methods for little-endian access, but
not for big-endian access. As a result, users must rely on alternatives when
reading big-endian values:
** For {{InputStream}}, wrapping in {{DataInputStream}} is required.
** For byte arrays, users must resort to {{ByteBuffer}}.
* *Minor gap:*
{{EndianUtils}} lacks a {{readUnsignedByte}} method. While a single byte is
independent of endianness, unsigned-byte reads are still a common operation
when consuming variable-width integer formats.
While {{ByteBuffer}} supports both byte orders and may become the preferred
approach as more libraries migrate to NIO, an improved unified utility within
Commons IO (or a successor to {{EndianUtils}}) would still offer significant
value: especially for stream-oriented code.
We might consider introducing a new {{Integers}} class, conceptually similar to
{{Strings}} in Commons Lang, with the following characteristics:
* Two singleton instances: {{BIG_ENDIAN}} and {{LITTLE_ENDIAN}}.
* Support for reading all Java integer types and their unsigned equivalents.
* Consistent behaviour that throws {{EOFException}} when insufficient data is
available.
* A clearer, more expressive API without ambiguous terminology.
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