Cat2Text-rs

This is a port of Cat2Text to Rust, with extra functionality, better documentation, and support for using it as a library as well.

Base 4 Format

Using the original base4 format, it works like this. First off, each word is equal to a value in base 4:

Value	Cat sound
0	meow
1	mrrp
2	mreow
3	mrow

Then, the text is converted into lowercase, 96 is subtracted from its ASCII value (i.e. "a" (97) -> 1), and it's converted to base 4, which is then replaced by the cat sounds above; Each cat sound is separated by a space (" "), then each word is delimited by a semicolon and a space ("; ").

For example, "i love cats" is translated into:

meow mreow mrrp; meow mrow meow meow mrow mrow mrrp mrrp mreow meow mrrp mrrp; meow meow mrow meow meow mrrp mrrp mrrp meow mrrp meow mrow

Separating out the letters and words:

[ ["meow mreow mrrp"], [ "meow mrow meow", "meow mrow mrow", "mrrp mrrp mreow", "meow mrrp mrrp" ], [ "meow meow mrow", "meow meow mrrp", "mrrp mrrp meow", "mrrp meow mrow" ] ]

Library usage

To use the library, just import the relevant functions, and run it like this:

use cat2text::base4::{encode, decode};

let encoded = encode("i love cats".to_string());
assert_eq!(encoded, "meow mreow mrrp; meow mrow meow meow mrow mrow mrrp mrrp mreow meow mrrp mrrp; meow meow mrow meow meow mrrp mrrp mrrp meow mrrp meow mrow");
let decoded = decode(encoded);
assert_eq!(decoded, "i love cats");

Or to encode binary in cat2text's expanded base16 alphabet:

use cat2text::{anybase::bytes::encode, core::bytes::char_length};

let bytes = &[243, 10];
let base = 16;
let char_length = char_length(base);

assert_eq!("mrow~ mrow meow purrrr", encode(bytes, base, char_length));

You can use the library to encode anything up to base 16 - for details, see the docs

Binary usage

A port of Cat2Text to Rust, with extra functionality, better documentation, and support for using it as a library as well.

Usage: cat2text <COMMAND>

Commands:
  gen-completion  Generate shell completions
  encode          Encodes text/data to mrow~
  decode          Decodes mrow~ to text/data
  benchmark       
  help            Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

Options:
  -h, --help     Print help
  -V, --version  Print version

For example, cat2text encode 'i love cats' to encode i love cats in text mode using the default of base 4.

Encode/decode arguments

• -b, --base (integer): What base to encode/decode using - up to base 16
• --bytes (flag): Whether to use byte encoding or text encoding
• -h, --help: Print help

Benchmark arguments

• -b, --base (integer): What base to encode/decode using - up to base 16
• -i, --iterations: How many iterations to run each benchmark for
• --bytes (flag): Whether to use byte encoding or text encoding
• -h, --help: Print help

Shell completions

To generate shell completions, you can run cat2text gen-completion $(basename $SHELL) | source on *nix systems using bash, zsh, or fish.