RefTake

RefTake is a non-owning alternative to [std::io::Take] that allows limiting how many bytes can be read from a referenced reader without taking ownership of it.

It is useful in scenarios where:

• You need to apply a byte limit to an existing borrowed reader.
• You’re implementing stream parsers or protocols where ownership cannot be moved.
• You want to reuse a single reader across multiple limited reads.

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✨ Features

• ✅ Works with any type implementing Read or BufRead
• ✅ Does not take ownership — wraps &mut R instead of consuming R
• ✅ Read and BufRead implementations respect the byte limit
• ✅ Supports dynamic limit adjustment via .set_limit()
• ✅ Extension trait to simplify usage: .take_ref(limit)

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📦 Usage

Add to your project

Add it to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
reftake = "0.1"

Example

use std::io::{Cursor, Read};
use ref_take::RefTakeExt;

fn main() {
    let mut reader = Cursor::new(b"hello world");
    let mut limited = (&mut reader).by_ref_take(5);

    let mut buffer = String::new();
    limited.read_to_string(&mut buffer).unwrap();
    assert_eq!(buffer, "hello");
}

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🔒 License

MIT OR Apache-2.0

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🔧 Contributing

Feel free to open issues, suggest improvements, or submit pull requests.

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📎 Related

• std::io::Take — the owning version
• BufReader — for buffered readers