Features and capabilities

Hadris separates three decisions that many crates combine:

1. Platform support: allocation-free, alloc, or std
2. I/O mode: sync, async, or both
3. Capability: read, write, detection, caching, or tooling

Choose each dimension explicitly when disabling default features. Enabling std provides heap allocation, but it does not implicitly select sync or async.

Platform features

Configuration	Available facilities	Typical targets
No platform feature	Stack and caller-provided buffers only	Bootloaders, early kernels, small firmware
alloc	Vec, String, owned paths and trees	Kernels and firmware with a global allocator
std	Hosted files, clocks, OS errors, and alloc	CLI tools, desktop applications, build systems

Not every operation can be allocation-free. Creating filesystem images and holding arbitrary directory trees generally requires alloc; ISO and UDF authoring currently require std.

I/O modes

The sync and async features select parallel API namespaces backed by hadris-io traits. They may be enabled together.

[dependencies]
hadris-fat = {
  version = "2.4.0",
  default-features = false,
  features = ["alloc", "read", "sync", "async", "lfn"]
}

Use hadris_fat::sync and hadris_fat::async explicitly when both modes are enabled. The crate-root re-exports remain available when sync is enabled for backward compatibility.

Some components are intentionally sync-only: FAT caching and analysis tools, the exFAT preview, and the hybrid ISO/UDF writer.

Format capability matrix

Crate	Formats or role	Read	Write/create	Sync	Async	Minimum for reading	Stability
hadris-fat	FAT12/16/32	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Allocation-free	Stable
hadris-fat unstable-exfat	exFAT preview	Partial	Partial	Yes	No	alloc	Experimental
hadris-part	MBR and GPT	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Allocation-free	Stable
hadris-iso	ISO 9660, Joliet, Rock Ridge	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Allocation-free	Stable
hadris-iso unstable-streaming	Streamed file input for the ISO writer	N/A	Yes	Yes	Yes	std	Experimental
hadris-udf	UDF 1.02	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	alloc for filesystem traversal	Stable
hadris-udf unstable-streaming	Streamed file input for the UDF writer	N/A	Yes	Yes	No	std	Experimental
hadris-cpio	CPIO newc and CRC	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Allocation-free	Stable
hadris-ntfs	NTFS	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	alloc	Experimental
hadris-cd	Hybrid ISO/UDF images	N/A	Yes	Yes	No	std	Stable

“Allocation-free” means the core parser can operate without a global allocator. Higher-level conveniences such as owned filenames, collected directory trees, or image construction may still require alloc.

Common configurations

Bootloader reading FAT

hadris-fat = {
  version = "2.4.0",
  default-features = false,
  features = ["read", "sync"]
}

Kernel with an allocator and async I/O

hadris-iso = {
  version = "2.4.0",
  default-features = false,
  features = ["alloc", "read", "async", "joliet"]
}

Hosted FAT editor

hadris-fat = {
  version = "2.4.0",
  features = ["cache", "tool"]
}

Allocation-only CPIO writer

hadris-cpio = {
  version = "2.4.0",
  default-features = false,
  features = ["alloc", "read", "write", "sync"]
}

Feature selection rules

• Select exactly the formats and capabilities the application uses.
• Select at least one I/O mode for APIs that access storage.
• Add alloc only when the chosen API returns or stores owned data.
• Prefer leaf crates when only one format is needed.
• Treat unstable-exfat, unstable-streaming, and hadris-ntfs as separately versioned experiments.

The workspace CI checks representative allocation-free, alloc, std, sync, async, and combined-mode tiers for every stable format crate.