Merge pull request #15 from multiformats/docs-improvements

README/golint: improve readme and make golint happy

README.md

@@ -7,17 +7,34 @@
 [![Travis CI](https://img.shields.io/travis/multiformats/go-multibase.svg?style=flat-square&branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/multiformats/go-multibase)
 [![codecov.io](https://img.shields.io/codecov/c/github/multiformats/go-multibase.svg?style=flat-square&branch=master)](https://codecov.io/github/multiformats/go-multibase?branch=master)
 
-> Implementation of [multibase](https://github.com/multiformats/multibase) parser in go
+> Implementation of [multibase](https://github.com/multiformats/multibase) -self identifying base encodings- in Go.
+
 
 ## Install
 
+`go-multibase` is a standard Go module which can be installed with:
+
 ```sh
 go get github.com/multiformats/go-multibase
 ```
 
+Note that `go-multibase` is packaged with Gx, so it is recommended to use Gx to install and use it (see Usage section).
+
 ## Usage
 
-TODO
+This module is packaged with [Gx](https://github.com/whyrusleeping/gx). In order to use it in your own project it is recommended that you:
+
+```sh
+go get -u github.com/whyrusleeping/gx
+go get -u github.com/whyrusleeping/gx-go
+cd <your-project-repository>
+gx init
+gx import github.com/multiformats/go-multibase
+gx install --global
+gx-go --rewrite
+```
+
+Please check [Gx](https://github.com/whyrusleeping/gx) and [Gx-go](https://github.com/whyrusleeping/gx-go) documentation for more information.
 
 ## Maintainers
 

multibase.go

@@ -9,8 +9,10 @@ import (
 	b32 "github.com/whyrusleeping/base32"
 )
 
+// Encoding identifies the type of base-encoding that a multibase is carrying.
 type Encoding int
 
+// These are the supported encodings
 const (
 	Identity          = 0x00
 	Base1             = '1'
@@ -35,8 +37,13 @@ const (
 	Base64urlPad      = 'U'
 )
 
+// ErrUnsupportedEncoding is returned when the selected encoding is not known or
+// implemented.
 var ErrUnsupportedEncoding = fmt.Errorf("selected encoding not supported")
 
+// Encode encodes a given byte slice with the selected encoding and returns a
+// multibase string (<encoding><base-encoded-string>). It will return
+// an error if the selected base is not known.
 func Encode(base Encoding, data []byte) (string, error) {
 	switch base {
 	case Identity:
@@ -65,6 +72,8 @@ func Encode(base Encoding, data []byte) (string, error) {
 	}
 }
 
+// Decode takes a multibase string and decodes into a bytes buffer.
+// It will return an error if the selected base is not known.
 func Decode(data string) (Encoding, []byte, error) {
 	if len(data) == 0 {
 		return 0, nil, fmt.Errorf("cannot decode multibase for zero length string")