CodableBloomFilter

An implementation of the Bloom filter data structure conforming to Swift's Codable serialization protocol.

• Installation
• Usage
• License

Installation

Swift Package Manager

Add a dependency to https://github.com/metabolist/codable-bloom-filter.git, either in Xcode or by adding it to the dependencies array in your Package.swift:

dependencies: [
    .package(name: "CodableBloomFilter", url: "https://github.com/metabolist/codable-bloom-filter.git", .upToNextMajor(from: "1.0.0"))
],

Usage

For a type to be usable in a bloom filter, it must conform to the DeterministicallyHashable protocol. An implemenation for Data and String is included.

Bloom filters are initialized with a set of hash functions and a count of bytes to use. CodableBloomFilter provides 5 different hash functions (32-bit versions of DJB2, DJB2a, SDBM, FNV1, and FNV1a). For determining the number of hash functions and size for your use case, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_filter#Optimal_number_of_hash_functions.

Note that while a size of 8 bytes is used in the following examples to keep the output readable, in practice you will likely want something larger.

A bloom filter can be used similarly to a Set:

var bloomFilter = BloomFilter<String>(hashes: [.sdbm32, .djb232], byteCount: 8)

bloomFilter.insert("string")

bloomFilter.contains("string") // returns true
bloomFilter.contains("other string") // returns false

To serialize a bloom filter:

let data = try JSONEncoder().encode(bloomFilter)
// `data` will be JSON data equivalent to "{"hashes":["djb232","sdbm32"],"data":"AAAAAAAAAhA="}"

To deserialize a bloom filter:

let bloomFilter = try JSONDecoder().decode(BloomFilter<String>.self, from: data)

Using a custom dataEncodingStrategy / dataDecodingStrategy is supported. For example, to have the data serialized as a hexadecimal string:

let encoder = JSONEncoder()

encoder.dataEncodingStrategy = .custom { data, encoder in
    var container = encoder.singleValueContainer()

    try container.encode(data.map { String(format: "%02.2hhx", $0) }.joined())
}

let data = try encoder.encode(bloomFilter)
// `data` will be JSON data equivalent to "{"hashes":["djb232","sdbm32"],"data":"0000000000000210"}"

Bloom filters can also be initialized from Data. To initialize the bloom filter above:

let bloomFilter = BloomFilter<String>(hashes: [.sdbm32, .djb232], data: Data([0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 16]))

A bloom filter's data can be accessed via its data property:

let data = bloomFilter.data // `data` will be equivalent to `Data([0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 16])`

License

CodableBloomFilter is released under the MIT license. See LICENSE for details.