Binary pattern matching <<1::1, 0::1, 1::1>>

I recently had to write a parser for a proprietary binary file format that stores photoplethysmography (PPG) and accelerometry data and various other health-related metrics derived from a wearable device. The format is similar in spirit to protocol buffers, but exploits domain knowledge to achieve an even more compact representation.

Elixir is not necessarily the most performant language for this kind of raw computation, being generally better suited to IO-bound tasks, but it does sport impressive binary handling capabilities that …

binary data device domain elixir exploits file health knowledge metrics protocol representation spirit stores wearable