Buffer objects are used to represent a fixed-length sequence of bytes. Many
Node.js APIs support Buffers.
The Buffer class is a subclass of JavaScript's Uint8Array class and
extends it with methods that cover additional use cases. Node.js APIs accept
plain Uint8Array s wherever Buffers are supported as well.
While the Buffer class is available within the global scope, it is still
recommended to explicitly reference it via an import or require statement.
import { Buffer } from'buffer';
// Creates a zero-filled Buffer of length 10. constbuf1 = Buffer.alloc(10);
// Creates a Buffer of length 10, // filled with bytes which all have the value `1`. constbuf2 = Buffer.alloc(10, 1);
// Creates an uninitialized buffer of length 10. // This is faster than calling Buffer.alloc() but the returned // Buffer instance might contain old data that needs to be // overwritten using fill(), write(), or other functions that fill the Buffer's // contents. constbuf3 = Buffer.allocUnsafe(10);
// Creates a Buffer containing the bytes [1, 2, 3]. constbuf4 = Buffer.from([1, 2, 3]);
// Creates a Buffer containing the bytes [1, 1, 1, 1] – the entries // are all truncated using `(value & 255)` to fit into the range 0–255. constbuf5 = Buffer.from([257, 257.5, -255, '1']);
// Creates a Buffer containing the UTF-8-encoded bytes for the string 'tést': // [0x74, 0xc3, 0xa9, 0x73, 0x74] (in hexadecimal notation) // [116, 195, 169, 115, 116] (in decimal notation) constbuf6 = Buffer.from('tést');
// Creates a Buffer containing the Latin-1 bytes [0x74, 0xe9, 0x73, 0x74]. constbuf7 = Buffer.from('tést', 'latin1');
Buffer
objects are used to represent a fixed-length sequence of bytes. Many Node.js APIs supportBuffer
s.The
Buffer
class is a subclass of JavaScript'sUint8Array
class and extends it with methods that cover additional use cases. Node.js APIs accept plainUint8Array
s whereverBuffer
s are supported as well.While the
Buffer
class is available within the global scope, it is still recommended to explicitly reference it via an import or require statement.See
source