How to conveniently work with binaries as vectors of bytes?

[radrow]

In my project I extensively use various byte arrays (Vec<u8>, [u8]). I have quite a number of types which comprise those as fields.

My problem is, ruslter converts those to Erlang lists, and I don't like for obvious reasons. This leaves me to these workarounds:

1. Implement almost all decoders/encoders by hand
2. Wrap all byte arrays with a newtype
3. Cry

The problem with 1 is that it's quite a tedious work. It also adds maintenance burden. Normally I would use a derive macro, but it automatically picks lists. I know the current way to go is 2, but I don't want to pollute entire code with a custom wrapper for a byte array for this one sole purpose. My project is not Erlang-first oriented. Regarding 3, I am out of tears already.

Is there any better way around it? If not, could this be a feature request?

[filmor]

Use Binary and OwnedBinary.

[radrow]

Let me give an example;

I have a struct like this:

struct Tree {
  data: Vec<u8>,
  nodes: Vec<Tree>
}

How do Binary/OwnedBinary help me here? If I use any Nif derive, data is going to be turned into a list of integers. Of course, I can write encoders/decoders myself (which is what I am doing now), but it would be nice to use derive.