# Cat2Text-rs

This is a port of [Cat2Text](https://github.com/askiiart/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"
> ]
> ]

## Usage

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

```rust
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");
```

You can use the library to encode anything up to base 16 - for details, see the [docs](https://docs.rs/cat2text/latest/cat2text/)

### Binary usage

TODO

## Limitations

This currently only supports lowercase text in the latin alphabet, and byte arrays.

## TODO

- Make `core::{cat_to_num, num_to_cat}` usage consistent with each other
- Improve CLI
- Add error handling
- Do `AsRef` stuff
- Optimize code