# Ion
[](https://hex.pm/packages/ion)
[](https://hexdocs.pm/ion/)
[](https://github.com/sabiwara/ion/actions?query=workflow%3ACI)
Lightweight utility library for efficient IO data and chardata handling.
## TLDR
Interpolation:
```elixir
# plain string
"#{name}: #{count}."
# IO data (using Ion)
~i"#{name}: #{count}."
# IO data (manual)
[name, " ", to_string(count), ?.]
```
Joining:
```elixir
# plain string
Enum.join(integers, "+")
# IO data (using Ion)
Ion.join(integers, "+")
# IO data (manual)
Enum.map_intersperse(integers, "+", &to_string/1)
```
Map joining:
```elixir
# plain string
Enum.map_join(users, ", ", fn user -> "#{user.first}.#{user.last}@passione.org" end)
# IO data (using Ion)
Ion.map_join(users, ", ", fn user -> ~i"#{user.first}.#{user.last}@passione.org" end)
# IO data (manual)
Enum.map_intersperse(users, ", ", fn user -> [user.first, ?., user.last, "@passione.org"] end)
```
## Why `Ion`?
[IO data and chardata](https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/io-and-the-file-system.html#iodata-and-chardata)
are one of the secret weapons behind Elixir and Erlang performance when it comes
to string processing and IO. Turns out the fastest way to concatenate strings
is: avoiding concatenation in the first place!
While it is perfectly possible to handcraft IO data with just the standard
library, it can sometimes be tedious, cryptic and error prone. `Ion` provides a
few common recipes which:
- drop-in replacement, with APIS consistent with the standard way of building
strings
- reduce the cognitive overhead and make the intent explicit
- are implemented in an optimal fashion (`Ion` is fast!)
- help reducing bugs through better typing (see below)
The examples above illustrate how easy it is to migrate from building strings to
building IO data or chardata.
### Increased safety
Building IO lists manually or through interspersing is error prone: we need to
be careful to cast things that are neither strings nor nested IO data or will
end up with invalid data:
```elixir
iex> as_bytes = Enum.intersperse(100..105, "+")
[100, "+", 101, "+", 102, "+", 103, "+", 104, "+", 105]
iex> IO.iodata_to_binary(as_bytes)
"d+e+f+g+h+i"
# need to make sure we have strings:
iex> Enum.map_intersperse(100..105, "+", &to_string/1) |> IO.iodata_to_binary()
# works just like Enum.join/2:
iex> Ion.join(100..105, "+") |> IO.iodata_to_binary()
"100+101+102+103+104+105"
```
### Performance
Because they are specialized, the join functions should also be faster than
interspersing (~1.5x, see the `benchmarks` folder).
## Installation
Ion can be installed by adding `Ion` to your list of dependencies in `mix.exs`:
```elixir
def deps do
[
{:ion, "~> 0.1.0"}
]
end
```
Or you can just try it out from `iex` or an `.exs` script:
```elixir
iex> Mix.install([:ion])
:ok
iex> Ion.join(["Hello", :world], ",")
["Hello", ",", "world"]
```
Documentation can be found at [https://hexdocs.pm/ion](https://hexdocs.pm/ion).
## Copyright and License
Ion is licensed under the [MIT License](LICENSE.md).
