binpack

binpack

Minimalist numeric binary packing utilities for node.js

What's all this?

This is an intentionally simple binary packing/unpacking package for node.js for programmers who prefer to write most of their parsing code in javascript. This exposes some common binary formats for numbers.

see the included COPYING file for licensing.

the core of the module is the set of pack/unpack pair functions. The meaning should be clear from the name - for example, packInt32 packs a given javascript number into a 32-bit int inside a 4-byte node.js Buffer, while unpackFloat32 unpacks a 4-byte node.js Buffer containing a native floating point number into a javascript number.

The following types are available for both pack and unpack:

Float32 
Float64 
Int8
Int16 
Int32
Int64
UInt8 
UInt16
UInt32
UInt64

Each pack* function takes a javascript number and outputs a node.js Buffer.

Each unpack* function takes a node.js Buffer and outputs a javascript number.

Both types of functions take an optional second argument. If this argument is "big", the output is put in big endian format. If the argument is "little", the output is put in little endian format. If the argument is anything else or non-existent, we default to your machine's native encoding.

How is this different than the binary module on npm?

It contains floating point values, and it has packing functions