Alcor6L/eLua/pack

This module allows for arbitrary packing of data into Lua strings and unpacking data from Lua strings. In this way, a string can be used to store data in a platform-indepdendent manner. It is based on the lpack module from Luiz Henrique de Figueiredo (with some minor tweaks).

Both methods of this module (pack and unpack) use a format string to describe how to pack/unpack the data. The format string contains one or more data specifiers, each data specifier is applied to a single variable that must be packed/unpacked. The data specifier has the following general format:

[endianness]<format_specifier>[count]

where:

• endianness is an optional endian flags that specifies how the numbers that are to be packed/unpacked are stored in memory. It can be:

   '<' for little endian.
   '>' for big endian.
   '=' for native endian (the platform's endian order, default).

• format_specifier describes what kind of variable will be packed/unpacked. The format specifier is case-sensitive. The possible values of this parameter are summarized in the table below:

   'z' zero-terminated string
   'p' string preceded by length byte
   'P' string preceded by length word
   'a' string preceded by length size_t
   'A' string
   'f' float
   'd' double
   'n' Lua number
   'c' char
   'b' byte = unsigned char
   'h' short
   'H' unsigned short
   'i' int
   'I' unsigned int
   'l' long
   'L' unsigned long

• count is an optional counter for the format specifier. For example, i5 instructs the code to pack/unpack 5 integer variables, as opposed to i that specifies a single integer variable.

Functions

pack.pack

Packs variables in a string.

packed = pack.pack( format, val1, val2, ..., valn )

• format - format specifier (as described here).
• val1 - first variable to pack.
• val2 - second variable to pack.
• valn - nth variable to pack.

Returns:

• packed - a string containing the packed representation of all variables according to the format.

pack.unpack

Unpacks a string

nextpos, val1, val2, ..., valn = pack.unpack( string, format, [ init ] )

• string - the string to unpack.
• format - format specifier (as described here).
• init - (optional) marks where in string the unpacking should start (1 if not specified).

Returns:

• nextpos - the position in the string after unpacking.
• val1 - the first unpacked value.
• val2 - the second unpacked value.
• valn - the nth unpacked value.