Merge branch 'master' of github.com:Pyknic/immutable-array

Author: Pyknic

README.md

@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
+# Immutable Array
+[![Javadocs](http://javadoc.io/badge/com.github.pyknic/immutable-array.svg)](http://javadoc.io/doc/com.github.pyknic/immutable-array)
+
+Read-only primitive Java arrays backed by Direct Buffers and indexed using 64-bit indexes
+
+The library uses a Builder Pattern for the array classes. When the builder is finalized, an appropriate implementation of the interface is choosen to fit the data. Here are some optimizations that are done upon build:
+
+* Special implementation for empty arrays
+* Small arrays are backed by an OnHeap array (regular `long[]`, `int[]`, etc)
+* Medium sized arrays are backed by a single `DirectBuffer`
+* Very large arrays (more than 2^26 elements) are backed by a number of direct buffers
+* If all values fit a smaller primitive, they will be warped (`long` to `int`, `int` to `short` etc)
+
+## Features
+* 64-bit indexing
+* Thread-safe (after build() has been called)
+* Immutability using a Builder pattern
+* Booleans are stored as efficient bitmaps
+* Backing structure is decided depending on the data
+* Allocated buffers are cleared as soon as they are no longer used (no need to wait for GC)
+
+## Supported Types
+The following interfaces are part of the API:
+* `BooleanImmutableArray`
+* `ByteImmutableArray`
+* `DoubleImmutableArray`
+* `FloatImmutableArray`
+* `IntImmutableArray`
+* `LongImmutableArray`
+* `ShortImmutableArray`
+
+## Example
+```java
+LongImmutableArray array = LongImmutableArray.builder()
+    .append(5)
+    .append(100_232)
+    .append(-32)
+    .build();
+```
+
+If all values follow the same pattern, they can be compressed upon build.
+```java
+LongImmutableArray array = LongImmutableArray.builder()
+    .append(1)
+    .append(2)
+    .append(3)
+    .build(); // Will be backed internally by a `byte[]` of length 3
+```
+
+## Usage
+Add the following to your `pom.xml`-file. The library has no external dependencies.
+```xml
+<dependency>
+    <groupId>com.github.pyknic</groupId>
+    <artifactId>immutable-array</artifactId>
+    <version>1.0.0</version>
+</dependency>
+```
+
+## License
+This project is available under the [Apache 2 license](http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0).