libcbor

Documentation for version 0.10.2, updated on Jun 03, 2023.

Overview

libcbor is a C library for parsing and generating CBOR, the general-purpose schema-less binary data format.

Main features

• Complete IETF RFC 8949 (STD 94) conformance 1

• Robust C99 implementation

• Layered architecture offers both control and convenience

• Flexible memory management

• No shared global state - threading friendly 2

• Proper handling of UTF-8

• Full support for streams & incremental processing

• Extensive documentation and test suite

• No runtime dependencies, small footprint

1

See IETF standard conformance

2

With the exception of custom memory allocators (see Memory management and reference counting)

Contents

• Getting started
  • Building & installing libcbor
  • Linking with libcbor
  • Troubleshooting
• Usage & preliminaries
  • Version information
  • Headers to include
  • Using libcbor
• API
  • Types of items
    • Binary queries
    • Logical queries
  • Memory management and reference counting
    • Using custom allocator
    • Reference counting
  • Decoding
    • Associated data structures
  • Encoding
    • Type-specific serializers
  • Streaming Decoding
    • Callback types definition
  • Streaming Encoding
  • Types 0 & 1 – Positive and negative integers
    • Type 0 - positive integers
    • Type 1 - negative integers
    • Type 0 & 1
    • Building new items
    • Retrieving values
    • Setting values
    • Dealing with width
    • Dealing with signedness
    • Creating new items
  • Type 2 – Byte strings
    • Getting metadata
    • Reading data
    • Creating new items
    • Building items
    • Manipulating existing items
  • Type 3 – UTF-8 strings
    • UTF-8 encoding validation
    • Getting metadata
    • Reading data
    • Creating new items
    • Building items
    • Manipulating existing items
  • Type 4 – Arrays
    • Examples
    • Getting metadata
    • Reading data
    • Creating new items
    • Modifying items
  • Type 5 – Maps
    • Examples
    • Getting metadata
    • Reading data
    • Creating new items
    • Modifying items
  • Type 6 – Semantic tags
  • Type 7 – Floats & control tokens
    • Getting metadata
    • Reading data
    • Creating new items
    • Building items
    • Manipulating existing items
    • Half floats
• Tests
  • Unit tests
  • Testing for memory leaks
  • Code coverage
  • Fuzz testing
• IETF standard conformance
  • Bytestring length
  • “Half-precision” IEEE 754 floats
• Internal mechanics
  • Terminology
  • Conventions
  • Inspiration & related projects
  • General notes on the API design
  • Coding style
  • Memory layout
  • Decoding
• Changelog
  • Next
  • 0.10.2 (2023-01-31)
  • 0.10.1 (2022-12-30)
  • 0.10.0 (2022-12-29)
  • 0.9.0 (2021-11-14)
  • 0.8.0 (2020-09-20)
  • 0.7.0 (2020-04-25)
  • 0.6.1 (2020-03-26)
  • 0.6.0 (2020-03-15)
  • 0.5.0 (2017-02-06)
  • 0.4.0 (2015-12-25)
  • 0.3.1 (2015-05-21)
  • 0.3.0 (2015-05-21)
  • 0.2.1 (2015-05-17)
  • 0.2.0 (2015-05-17)
  • 0.1.0 (2015-05-06)
• Development
  • Vision and principles
    • Mission statement
    • Goals
      • Standard conformance and full feature support
      • Safety
      • Self-containment
      • Portability
      • Stable and predictable API
      • Performance
    • Non-goals
  • Development dependencies
    • Installing sphinx
    • Live preview of docs
    • Set up git hooks
    • Testing and code coverage