Flexible Byte Layout is an advanced layout for representing binary data.

It is flexible enough to support very small and very large (multi-block) binary data.

Usage

const fbl = require('@ipld/fbl')
const fs = require('fs')

const stream = fs.createReadStream('path/to/file')

for await (const block of fbl.from(stream)) {
  storage.put(block)
}

API

fs.from(asyncIterable, algorithm=balanced())

This method returns an async iterable of Block instances.

It accepts any async iterable, but the iterable must only yield instances of Buffer.

The algorithm is an async generator that takes an array of [ length, cid ] tuples and yields Block instances.

The default algorithm is for a balanced tree with a default limit of 1000 chunk references per block.

fs.size(buffer|block|decodedBlockData)

This method returns the size of a given FBL. It accepts either a buffer, Block instance or the data for an FBL root block.

fs.read(root, get, start=0, end=Infinity)

read returns and async generator that will yield Buffer instance for every chunk within the start and end boundaries.

root is a root block, CID, or decoded block for the root of the FBL tree.

get is async cid => Block(), and async function that takes a CID instance and returns a Block instance.

start and end are the offsets to slice out of the data. Any end offset larger than the total size of the FBL will read to the end of the FBL and finish without throwing an exception.

fs.balanced(limit=1000)

This method returns an async generator for a balanced tree with no more than limit part references per block.

Schema

Flexible Byte Layout is an advanced layout for representing binary data.

It is flexible enough to support very small and very large (multi-block) binary data.

type FlexibleByteLayout union {
  | Bytes bytes
  | NestedByteList list
  | &FlexibleByteLayout link
} representation kinded

type NestedByteList [ NestedByte ]

type NestedByte union {
  | Bytes bytes
  | NestedFBL list
} representation kinded

type NestedFBL struct {
  length Int
  part FlexibleByteLayout
} representation tuple

FlexibleByteLayout uses a potentially recursive union type. This allows you to build very large nested dags via NestedByteList that can themselves contain additional NestedByteLists, links to BytesUnions.

An implementation must define a custom function for reading ranges of binary data but once implemented, you can read data regardless of the layout algorithm used.

Since readers only need to concern themselves with implementing the read method, they do not need to understand the algorithms used to generate the layouts. This gives a lot of flexibility in the future to define new layout algorithms as necessary without needing to worry about updating prior impelementations.

The length property must be encoded with the proper byte length. If not encoded properly, readers will not be able to read properly. However, the property is not secure and a malicious encoder could write it as whatever they please. As such, it should not be relied upon when calculating usage against a quota or any similar calculation where there may be an incentive for an encoder to alter the length.