+Hiredis comes with a reply parsing API that makes it easy for writing higher
+level language bindings.
+
+The reply parsing API consists of the following functions:
+
+ redisReader *redisReaderCreate(void);
+ void redisReaderFree(redisReader *reader);
+ int redisReaderFeed(redisReader *reader, const char *buf, size_t len);
+ int redisReaderGetReply(redisReader *reader, void **reply);
+
+The same set of functions are used internally by hiredis when creating a
+normal Redis context, the above API just exposes it to the user for a direct
+usage.
+
+### Usage
+
+The function `redisReaderCreate` creates a `redisReader` structure that holds a
+buffer with unparsed data and state for the protocol parser.
+
+Incoming data -- most likely from a socket -- can be placed in the internal
+buffer of the `redisReader` using `redisReaderFeed`. This function will make a
+copy of the buffer pointed to by `buf` for `len` bytes. This data is parsed
+when `redisReaderGetReply` is called. This function returns an integer status
+and a reply object (as described above) via `void **reply`. The returned status
+can be either `REDIS_OK` or `REDIS_ERR`, where the latter means something went
+wrong (either a protocol error, or an out of memory error).
+
+### Customizing replies
+
+The function `redisReaderGetReply` creates `redisReply` and makes the function
+argument `reply` point to the created `redisReply` variable. For instance, if
+the response of type `REDIS_REPLY_STATUS` then the `str` field of `redisReply`
+will hold the status as a vanilla C string. However, the functions that are
+responsible for creating instances of the `redisReply` can be customized by
+setting the `fn` field on the `redisReader` struct. This should be done
+immediately after creating the `redisReader`.
+
+For example, [hiredis-rb](https://github.com/pietern/hiredis-rb/blob/master/ext/hiredis_ext/reader.c)
+uses customized reply object functions to create Ruby objects.
+
+### Reader max buffer
+
+Both when using the Reader API directly or when using it indirectly via a
+normal Redis context, the redisReader structure uses a buffer in order to
+accumulate data from the server.
+Usually this buffer is destroyed when it is empty and is larger than 16
+kb in order to avoid wasting memory in unused buffers
+
+However when working with very big payloads destroying the buffer may slow
+down performances considerably, so it is possible to modify the max size of
+an idle buffer changing the value of the `maxbuf` field of the reader structure
+to the desired value. The special value of 0 means that there is no maximum
+value for an idle buffer, so the buffer will never get freed.
+
+For instance if you have a normal Redis context you can set the maximum idle
+buffer to zero (unlimited) just with:
+
+ context->reader->maxbuf = 0;
+
+This should be done only in order to maximize performances when working with
+large payloads. The context should be set back to `REDIS_READER_MAX_BUF` again
+as soon as possible in order to prevent allocation of useless memory.