buffer-writer

buffer-writer

Fast & efficient buffer writer used to keep memory usage low by internally recycling a single large buffer.

Used as the binary protocol writer in node-postgres

Since postgres requires big endian encoding, this only writes big endian numbers for now, but can & probably will easily be extended to write little endian as well.

I'll admit this has a few postgres specific things I might need to take out in the future, such as addHeader

api

var writer = new (require('buffer-writer')());

writer.addInt32(num)

Writes a 4-byte big endian binary encoded number to the end of the buffer.

writer.addInt16(num)

Writes a 2-byte big endian binary encoded number to the end of the buffer.

writer.addCString(string)

Writes a string to the buffer utf8 encoded and adds a null character (\0) at the end.

var buffer = writer.addHeader(char)

Writes the 5 byte PostgreSQL required header to the beginning of the buffer. (1 byte for character, 1 BE Int32 for length of the buffer)

var buffer = writer.join()

Collects all data in the writer and joins it into a single, new buffer.

var buffer = writer.flush(char)

Writes the 5 byte postgres required message header, collects all data in the writer and joins it into a single, new buffer, and then resets the writer.

thoughts

This is kind of node-postgres specific. If you're interested in using this for a more general purpose thing, lemme know. I would love to work with you on getting this more reusable for your needs.

license

MIT

Similar packages

Other packages similar to buffer-writer

smart-buffer

Smart-buffer is an npm package that provides similar functionality to buffer-writer. It allows for reading and writing to Buffers in Node.js with automatic resizing. It has a more fluent API and additional features like inserting data at arbitrary positions and supports chaining of method calls.

buffer-builder

Buffer-builder is another npm package that offers functionality to write various types of data to a buffer. It is similar to buffer-writer but has a different API design and may have different performance characteristics.

bl

The 'bl' (Buffer List) package is a Node.js module that provides a storage mechanism for collections of Node Buffers. While it is not a direct alternative to buffer-writer, it can be used in conjunction with it to manage a list of buffers efficiently.