bencode

Ruby bencode binding

This is a simple library for reading and writing bencoded data.

What is bencode?

Bencode is a simple data serialization format used by the popular BitTorrent P2P file sharing system.

It contains only four data types, namely:

• byte strings
• integers
• lists
• dictionaries

Examples

Encoding objects is as simple as calling #bencode on them:

"foo bar".bencode                   # => "7:foo bar"
42.bencode                          # => "i42e"
[1, 2, 3].bencode                   # => "li1ei2ei3ee"
{"foo" => 1, "bar" => -10}.bencode  # => "d3:bari-10e3:fooi1ee"

Decoding a complete data stream is as easy as calling BEncode.load(data).

Decoding a data stream in chunks works as follows:

irb(main):007:0> stream = BEncode::Parser.new(StringIO.new "d3:foo3:bared3:baz3:quxe")
=> #<BEncode::Parser:0x007fbe6b008c88 @stream=#<StringIO:0x007fbe6b008cd8>>
irb(main):008:0> stream.parse!
=> {"foo"=>"bar"}
irb(main):009:0> stream.parse!
=> {"baz"=>"qux"}

License

Released under the MIT license.

Contributors

• Daniel Schierbeck (dasch)
• Mike Hodgson (mikehodgson)
• Andrew Danforth
• Eric Himmelreich
• Allen Madsen (blatyo)
• Ian Levesque (ianlevesque)
• Dirk Geurs (Dirklectisch)
• Xinyue Lu (msg7086)