[stevevanhooser]

Why

NDI-python's ingest needs to store data the way NDI-matlab does. For example, Intan amplifier and aux samples are stored as unsigned 16-bit integers. The encoder learned this in Waltham-Data-Science/NDI-compress#14 (merged). This PR brings the matching wrapper change, the rebuilt binaries, and a way to keep the bundled binaries in step with NDI-compress.

What

• compress_ephys(data, fullfilename, *, output_size_bits=None, data_is_unsigned=None, data_format=None), mirroring MATLAB's ndi.compress.compress_ephys:
  • integer arrays keep their dtype (signedness and size);
  • data_format='float' stores 64-bit floats;
  • non-integer input with no data_format is still converted to int16, as before.
• Stale-binary guard: after compressing, the wrapper checks the written header and raises if it doesn't match the request. An ndi_compress_ephys built before NDI-compress#14 ignores the format keys and silently stores signed int16. Legacy int16 calls still work with old binaries.
• Binaries for all three platforms rebuilt from NDI-compress 650b308 (main with #14) by the new workflow, in commit 8693827.
• build-binaries workflow: builds the tools from NDI-compress on Linux (ubuntu-22.04), macOS (universal) and Windows. It runs this package's tests with them on each platform, then commits them into src/ndicompress/bin/ on the branch it ran on.
  • Which NDI-compress commit to build is recorded in ndi-compress-ref.txt.
  • Changing that file, or the workflow itself, triggers a build. Once this PR is on main, it can also be run from the Actions tab.
  • NDI-compress is private, so the workflow reads it with a read-only deploy key (NDI_COMPRESS_DEPLOY_KEY). The key doesn't expire, isn't tied to anyone's account, and can read only NDI-compress.
  • Only the commit job can write to the repo. Every action is pinned to a commit. The NDI-compress checkout doesn't keep its key in the runner's git config.
  • On Windows the tests run in PowerShell, so they use Windows' own tar, as users' setups do.
• test.yml can also be run by hand (workflow_dispatch). A commit made by build-binaries starts no other workflow, so after a rebuild, run "Test NDI Compress" on the branch.
• The README explains how the bundled executables are kept up to date.

Testing

• build-binaries run 3 passed:
  • NDI-compress built on Linux, macOS and Windows;
  • its C tests and this package's tests passed on each platform with the new binaries;
  • the binaries were then committed.
• "Test NDI Compress" on the head commit (d428259): ubuntu, macOS and Windows all pass.
• New tests:
  • exact round trips for int8, uint8, int16, uint16 and int32;
  • the uint16 header fields;
  • float round trip;
  • the legacy int16 conversion.
• With the old Linux binary, the guard raised on a uint16 request and the legacy int16 call still worked.

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Generated by Claude Code

[stevevanhooser]

test (macos-latest) fails because bin/macos/ndi_compress_ephys is still the old binary. Windows will fail the same way. The code here is fine.

The old binary:

• reads only int16, so the uint8/int8/int32 round trips fail with Error reading input data;
• crashes on the 3-sample inputs (the short-input bug fixed in Waltham-Data-Science/NDI-compress#14);
• ignores data_format. The new header guard catches this one: it reports (1, 0, 16) instead of the requested (2, 0, 64).

Fix: replace src/ndicompress/bin/macos/ndi_compress_ephys and src/ndicompress/bin/windows/ndi_compress_ephys.exe with the builds from NDI-compress#14's artifacts (ndi-tools-macos-latest, ndi-tools-windows-latest, run 40742285671). I can't download artifacts from my environment, so this needs a manual copy. Linux passes because its binary is already rebuilt in this PR.

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Generated by Claude Code

[stevevanhooser]

test (macos-latest) still fails for the same reason as before: bin/macos holds the old binary.

The fix is now in this PR as the build-binaries workflow. It builds the binaries from NDI-compress, tests them on all three platforms, and commits them. Its first run stopped at the NDI-compress checkout with "Repository not found", because NDI-compress is private and a workflow's own token can't read it.

Blocker: the repository secret NDI_COMPRESS_TOKEN, a fine-grained token with read-only Contents access to Waltham-Data-Science/NDI-compress. Once it's set, I'll trigger the build by changing ndi-compress-ref.txt. The workflow's commit doesn't start test.yml itself, so that check should then be re-run on the new head.

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Generated by Claude Code