NXS — Ruby

Zero-copy .nxb reader for Ruby 3.x. Pure-Ruby implementation with an optional C extension for hot-path columnar scans. No gems required.

Requirements

Ruby 3.0+. The C extension requires a C compiler and Ruby headers (ruby-dev / ruby-devel).

Read a file

require_relative "nxs"

bytes  = File.binread("data.nxb")
reader = Nxs::Reader.new(bytes)

puts reader.record_count              # instant — read from tail-index, no parse pass
obj = reader.record(42)               # O(1) seek
puts obj.get_str("username")
puts obj.get_f64("score")
puts obj.get_bool("active")
puts obj.get_i64("id")

Columnar reducers

total = reader.sum_f64("score")
low   = reader.min_f64("score")
high  = reader.max_f64("score")
ages  = reader.sum_i64("age")

C extension (hot path)

Build once:

bash ext/build.sh

require_relative "ext/nxs/nxs_ext"   # loads Nxs::CReader and Nxs::CObject

reader = Nxs::CReader.new(bytes)
puts reader.record(42).get_str("username")
puts reader.sum_f64("score")          # 6.78 ms at 1M records vs 942 ms pure Ruby

At 1M records the C extension is 139× faster than pure Ruby for sum_f64, and 5.6× faster than JSON.parse.

Write a file

require_relative "nxs_writer"

schema = Nxs::Schema.new(["id", "username", "score", "active"])
w = Nxs::Writer.new(schema)

w.begin_object
w.write_i64(0, 42)
w.write_str(1, "alice")
w.write_f64(2, 9.5)
w.write_bool(3, true)
w.end_object

data = w.finish   # binary String (encoding ASCII-8BIT)

# Convenience: write from an array of hashes
data2 = Nxs::Writer.from_records(
  ["id", "username", "score"],
  [{ "id" => 1, "username" => "bob", "score" => 8.2 }]
)

Tests

ruby test.rb ../js/fixtures    # 22 tests

Benchmarks

ruby bench.rb ../js/fixtures       # pure Ruby vs JSON
ruby bench_c.rb ../js/fixtures     # C extension vs JSON

Files

File	Purpose
nxs.rb	Pure-Ruby reader (Nxs::Reader, Nxs::Object)
nxs_writer.rb	Pure-Ruby writer (Nxs::Schema, Nxs::Writer)
ext/nxs/nxs_ext.c	C extension source (Nxs::CReader, Nxs::CObject)
ext/nxs/extconf.rb	Extension build configuration
ext/build.sh	Compiles the C extension

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For the format specification see SPEC.md. For cross-language examples see GETTING_STARTED.md.