README

Modern, endian-aware byte buffer for PHP inspired by ActionScript's ByteArray and Java's ByteBuffer.

Requirements

PHP >= 8.1
ext-zlib (for compression helpers)
ext-iconv

Installation

composer require byte-array/byte-array

Quick start

<?php

use ByteArray\ByteArray;

require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

$buffer = new ByteArray();
$buffer->writeBoolean(true);
$buffer->writeInt(42);
$buffer->writeUTF('hello');
$buffer->writeDouble(3.14);

$buffer->rewind();

$flag = $buffer->readBoolean();
$number = $buffer->readInt();
$text = $buffer->readUTF();
$pi = $buffer->readDouble();

Features

Big- and little-endian reads/writes for common primitives (byte, short, int, float, double).
UTF strings with length prefix plus raw UTF byte helpers.
Safe bounds checks on every read with clear exceptions.
Compression/ decompression (zlib, gzip) with error handling.
Conversions to/from Base64 and hexadecimal.
File helpers (fromFile, toFile), slicing, duplication, and position helpers (rewind, seek, skip, isEOF).
Optional JSON-based serialization (writeJson/readJson) as a safe alternative to PHP serialize.
Random byte generation for tokens and seeds.

Endianness

$buffer->setEndian(ByteArray::ENDIAN_LITTLE); // or ByteArray::ENDIAN_BIG

All numeric reads/writes honor the current setting.

Compression helpers

$buffer->compress(ByteArray::COMPRESSION_GZIP);
$buffer->uncompress(ByteArray::COMPRESSION_GZIP);

Exceptions are thrown for unsupported algorithms or failures.

Serialization safety

writeObject/readObject mirror the legacy PHP serialize/unserialize flow and must not be used with untrusted data.
Prefer the safe alternatives writeJson and readJson when exchanging data externally.

Testing

composer install
composer test

CI

GitHub Actions workflow at .github/workflows/tests.yml runs the PHPUnit suite on PHP 8.1 and 8.2.

License

MIT – see LICENSE.

amorim778 / byte-array-php

Maintainers

Details