Buffers¶
Pure JavaScript doesn’t have support for binary data.
NodeJS has a separate data type called Buffer
which provides
support for binary data (an array of bytes).
This is useful for working with file system and TCP/IP networking.
Creating a buffer
A buffer of 5 bytes without initialization:
let data = new Buffer(5);
Creating a buffer from an array of values (values should be between 0 to 255):
let data = new Buffer([10 10 20 20 50]);
Buffers and Strings
Converting a sting into a buffer:
let data = new Buffer('hello text');
By default, strings are encoded in buffers using utf-8
encoding.
Converting a string into a buffer using a specific encoding:
let data = new Buffer('hello text', 'utf16le');
data = new Buffer('hello text', 'utf-8');
data = new Buffer('hello text', 'ascii');
data = new Buffer('hello text', 'base64');