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HEC-DSS Rust Library

A pure Rust implementation of the HEC-DSS (Data Storage System) version 7 file format used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for hydrologic and hydraulic data.

What is HEC-DSS?

HEC-DSS is a binary file format for storing time series, paired data, spatial grids, and other hydrologic data. It is used by USACE software including HEC-RAS, HEC-HMS, HEC-ResSim, and HEC-DSSVue.

Why Rust?

The original HEC-DSS library is written in C with Fortran components. This Rust implementation provides:

  • Memory safety - no buffer overflows, null dereferences, or use-after-free
  • Thread safety - each file handle is protected by a mutex
  • Zero dependencies - no C compiler, zlib, or Fortran runtime needed
  • Cross-platform - builds on Windows, Linux, and macOS
  • Small footprint - 200 KB DLL vs 705 KB for the C version
  • Multiple language bindings - Rust, Python (PyO3), C (FFI), Fortran

Features

  • Read and write all DSS7 data types (text, time series, paired data, arrays, location, grids)
  • Multi-block time series with time window filtering
  • Record management (delete, undelete, squeeze, copy)
  • Alias system for record aliasing
  • CRC-based change detection
  • File integrity checking
  • zlib compression for grid data
  • DSS v6 to v7 conversion (via CLI tool)
  • Wildcard catalog filtering
  • 40/40 hecdss.h FFI functions implemented (100% drop-in compatible)