This API was a mostly gratuitous deviation from POSIX that gave up some
portability in exchange for avoiding the occasional strlen().
I don't think that was actually achieving anything valuable, so let's
just chill out and have the same open() API as everyone else. :^)
Problem:
- Output of decode and encode grow as the decode and encode
happen. This is inefficient because a large size will require many
reallocations.
- `const` qualifiers are missing on variables which are not intended
to change.
Solution:
- Since the size of the decoded or encoded message is known prior to
starting, calculate the size and set the output to that size
immediately. All appends will not incur the reallocation overhead.
- Add `const` qualifiers to show intent.
