bufferutil

What is bufferutil?

The bufferutil package is a Node.js utility module that provides efficient buffer operations. It is primarily used to enhance the performance of binary data manipulation by providing a native addon for buffer operations which are faster than pure JavaScript implementations.

What are bufferutil's main functionalities?

Masking and unmasking WebSocket frames

This feature allows you to mask and unmask data according to the WebSocket protocol, which is useful for WebSocket frame manipulation.

const bufferUtil = require('bufferutil');
const buffer = Buffer.from('Hello World');
const masked = bufferUtil.mask(buffer, Buffer.from([0x12, 0x34, 0x56, 0x78]));
const unmasked = bufferUtil.unmask(masked, Buffer.from([0x12, 0x34, 0x56, 0x78]));

Buffer concatenation

This feature provides a method to concatenate multiple buffers into a single buffer efficiently.

const bufferUtil = require('bufferutil');
const buffers = [Buffer.from('Hello'), Buffer.from(' '), Buffer.from('World')];
const concatenated = bufferUtil.concat(buffers);

Buffer comparison

This feature allows you to compare two buffers for equality, which is faster than comparing them byte-by-byte in JavaScript.

const bufferUtil = require('bufferutil');
const buffer1 = Buffer.from('Hello');
const buffer2 = Buffer.from('Hello');
const isEqual = bufferUtil.equals(buffer1, buffer2);

Other packages similar to bufferutil

ws

The 'ws' package is a WebSocket client and server implementation for Node.js. It includes a built-in buffer utility for masking and unmasking WebSocket frames, similar to bufferutil, but it is a more comprehensive solution for working with WebSockets.

buffer

The 'buffer' package is a Node.js core module that provides a way to handle binary data. It includes methods for manipulating buffers but does not have the native performance optimizations that bufferutil offers.

buffers

The 'buffers' package provides a way to work with collections of Node.js Buffer objects. It offers buffer manipulation capabilities like concatenation and slicing, but it does not focus on WebSocket frame manipulation or the native performance enhancements found in bufferutil.

README

bufferutil

Buffer utils is one of the modules that makes ws fast. It's optimized for certain buffer based operations such as merging buffers, generating WebSocket masks and unmasking.

As the module consists of binary components, it should be used an optionalDependency so when installation fails, it doesn't halt the installation of your module. There are fallback files available in this repository. See fallback.js for the suggest fallback implementation if installation fails.

Installation

npm install bufferutil

API

In all examples we assume that you've already required the BufferUtil as followed:

'use strict';

var bu = require('bufferutil').BufferUtil;

The module exposes 3 different functions:

merge

Merge multiple buffers in the first supplied buffer argument:

bu.merge(buffer, [buffer1, buffer2]);

This merges buffer1 and buffer2 which are in an array into buffer.

mask

Apply a WebSocket mask on the given data.

bu.mask(buffer, mask);

unmask

Remove a WebSocket mask on the given data.;w

bu.unmask(buffer, mask);

License

MIT