How to read different ints from a Bigarray?

[Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>]

Hi,

I'm working on binding s for linux libaio library (asynchron IO) with
a sharp eye on efficiency. That means no copying must be done on the
data, which in turn means I can not use string as buffer type.

The best type for this seems to be a (int, int8_unsigned_elt,
c_layout) Bigarray.Array1.t. So far so good.

Now I define helper functions:

let get_uint8 buf off = buf.{off}
let set_uint8 buf off x = buf.{off} <- x

But I want more:

get/set_int8 - do I use Obj.magic to "convert" to int8_signed_elt?

And endian correcting access for larger ints:

get/set_big_uint16
get/set_big_int16
get/set_little_uint16
get/set_little_int16
get/set_big_uint24
...
get/set_little_int56
get/set_big_int64
get/set_little_int64

What is the best way there? For uintXX I can get_uint8 each byte and
shift and add them together. But that feels inefficient as each access
will range check and the shifting generates a lot of code while cpus
can usualy endian correct an int more elegantly.

Is it worth the overhead of calling a C function to write optimized
stubs for this?

And last:

get/set_string, blit_from/to_string

Do I create a string where needed and then loop over every char
calling s.(i) <- char_of_int buf.{off+i}? Or better a C function using
memcpy?

What do you think?

MfG
        Goswin

PS: Does batteries have a better module for this than Bigarray?