buffy (The Buffer Slayer)

A module to read / write binary data and streams.

Install

THIS MODULE IS STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS, DO NOT USE!

Usage

Let's say you want to parse a simple C struct, buffy can help:

var buffy = require('buffy');

var buffer = new Buffer([23, 0, 0, 0, 15, 116, 101, 115, 116]);
var reader = buffy.createReader(buffer);

var record = {
  version : reader.uint8(),
  id      : reader.uint32(),
  name    : reader.ascii(4),
};

// {version: 23, id: 15, name: 'test'}

Parsing a buffer is nice, but what about streams? Well, buffy has your back:

var buffy      = require('buffy');
var net        = require('net');
var connection = net.createConnection(1337, 'example.org');

var reader = buffy.createReader();
connection.pipe(reader);

var struct = [
  ['version' , 'uint8'],
  ['id'      , 'uint32'],
  ['name'    , 'ascii', 4],
];

reader.on('data', function() {
  var record = reader.read(struct);
  if (!record) {
    return;
  }
});

API

reader.write(buffer)

Appends the given buffer to the internal buffer.

reader.bytesAhead()

Returns the number of unread bytes available to the reader.

reader.int8() / reader.uint8()

Returns the next (un)signed 8 bit integer.

reader.int16BE() / reader.uint16BE() / reader.int16LE() / reader.uint16LE()

Returns the next (un)signed 16 bit integer in the chosen endianness.

reader.int32BE() / reader.uint32BE() / reader.int32LE() / reader.uint32LE()

Returns the next (un)signed 32 bit integer in the chosen endianness.

reader.ascii([bytes]) / reader.utf8([bytes])

Returns the next bytes as a string of the chosen encoding. If bytes is omitted, a null terminated string is assumed.

reader.buffer([bytes])

Returns the next bytes as a buffer.

Error Handling

The reader will throw an exception whenever an operation exceeds the boundary of the internal buffer.