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Roadmap

All dates and features are very subject to change!

Minimal Viable Product

Version 0.1 - Now done 🎉 in September 2024

• New immutable Bits class.
• Dtype class.
• Array class. Mutable, but with proxy to underlying Bits.
• Field, Format classes.
• float, int, uint, hex, oct, bin, bytes, bool dtypes.
• Remove unneeded exception types.
• pack and unpack methods for Bits.
• Endianness modifiers for dtypes.

Next targets

Version 0.2 - Done 🎉 in Q1 2025

• Improve documentation and testing.
• Replace core with Rust library.
• Reader class.

Version 0.3 / 0.4 - Done 🎉 Q2 2025.

• More Dtype classes and functionality.
• Expression class and usage.
• Repeat class.
• If / Else class.

Version 0.5 - Q3 2025?

• MutableBits class.
• Better performance.
• Better platform coverage for Python wheels on PyPI.

Later additions

• Exotic float types.
• Bit reverse modifier for dtypes?
• LSB0 mode.
• User defined types?

Possible new features:

• Allow a new dtype to be specified in Array.unpack. Keep the Array's current dtype as the default.
• Array.from_zeros(dtype, n) method, to match Bits.from_zeros. Don't think we really need Array.from_ones.
• Array.from_dtype(dtype, list) method. This is essentially just the __init__ method, but nice symmetry with Bits.
• FieldType.parse should take a **kwargs. Not very useful until expressions are available.
• Enum class that allows bit values to be named in a Field.
• split_at method for Bits. Returns tuple of two Bits split at a given bit position. Should not involve any copying.

Not planned

Some features that are in bitstring, but are not planned for bitformat:

• Exponential Golomb types.
• Explicit file support.