Add serde

docs/api/rosbags.rst

@@ -4,4 +4,5 @@ Rosbags namespace
 .. toctree::
    :maxdepth: 4
 
+   rosbags.serde
    rosbags.typesys

docs/api/rosbags.serde.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+rosbags.serde
+=============
+
+.. automodule:: rosbags.serde
+   :members:
+   :show-inheritance:

docs/index.rst

@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@
    :hidden:
 
    topics/typesys
+   topics/serde
 
 
 .. toctree::

docs/topics/serde.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+Serialization and deserialization
+=================================
+
+The serialization and deserialization system :py:mod:`rosbags.serde` supports multiple raw message formats. For each format it provides a pair of functions, one for serialization and one for deserialization. In addition to the data to process each function usually only requires the message type name.
+
+Deserialization
+---------------
+
+Deserialize a CDR bytes object using :py:func:`deserialize_cdr() <rosbags.serde.deserialize_cdr>`:
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+   from rosbags.serde import deserialize_cdr
+
+   # rawdata is of type bytes and contains serialized message
+   msg = deserialize_cdr(rawdata, 'geometry_msgs/msg/Quaternion')
+
+Serialization
+---------------
+
+Serialize a message with CDR using :py:func:`serialize_cdr() <rosbags.serde.serialize_cdr>`:
+   
+.. code-block:: python
+
+   from rosbags.serde import serialize_cdr
+
+   # serialize message with system endianess
+   serialized = serialize_cdr(msg, 'geometry_msgs/msg/Quaternion')
+
+   # serialize message with explicit endianess
+   serialized = serialize_cdr(msg, 'geometry_msgs/msg/Quaternion', little_endian=False)