multiformats

multiformats

Interface for multihash, multicodec, multibase and CID

About

This library defines common interfaces and low level building blocks for various interrelated multiformat technologies (multicodec, multihash, multibase, and CID). They can be used to implement custom base encoders / decoders / codecs, codec encoders /decoders and multihash hashers that comply to the interface that layers above assume.

This library provides implementations for most basics and many others can be found in linked repositories.

import { CID } from 'multiformats/cid'
import * as json from 'multiformats/codecs/json'
import { sha256 } from 'multiformats/hashes/sha2'

const bytes = json.encode({ hello: 'world' })

const hash = await sha256.digest(bytes)
const cid = CID.create(1, json.code, hash)
//> CID(bagaaierasords4njcts6vs7qvdjfcvgnume4hqohf65zsfguprqphs3icwea)

Creating Blocks

import * as Block from 'multiformats/block'
import * as codec from '@ipld/dag-cbor'
import { sha256 as hasher } from 'multiformats/hashes/sha2'

const value = { hello: 'world' }

// encode a block
let block = await Block.encode({ value, codec, hasher })

block.value // { hello: 'world' }
block.bytes // Uint8Array
block.cid   // CID() w/ sha2-256 hash address and dag-cbor codec

// you can also decode blocks from their binary state
block = await Block.decode({ bytes: block.bytes, codec, hasher })

// if you have the cid you can also verify the hash on decode
block = await Block.create({ bytes: block.bytes, cid: block.cid, codec, hasher })

Multibase Encoders / Decoders / Codecs

CIDs can be serialized to string representation using multibase encoders that implement MultibaseEncoder interface. This library provides quite a few implementations that can be imported:

import { base64 } from "multiformats/bases/base64"
cid.toString(base64.encoder)
//> 'mAYAEEiCTojlxqRTl6svwqNJRVM2jCcPBxy+7mRTUfGDzy2gViA'

Parsing CID string serialized CIDs requires multibase decoder that implements MultibaseDecoder interface. This library provides a decoder for every encoder it provides:

CID.parse('mAYAEEiCTojlxqRTl6svwqNJRVM2jCcPBxy+7mRTUfGDzy2gViA', base64.decoder)
//> CID(bagaaierasords4njcts6vs7qvdjfcvgnume4hqohf65zsfguprqphs3icwea)

Dual of multibase encoder & decoder is defined as multibase codec and it exposes them as encoder and decoder properties. For added convenience codecs also implement MultibaseEncoder and MultibaseDecoder interfaces so they could be used as either or both:

cid.toString(base64)
CID.parse(cid.toString(base64), base64)

Note: CID implementation comes bundled with base32 and base58btc multibase codecs so that CIDs can be base serialized to (version specific) default base encoding and parsed without having to supply base encoders/decoders:

const v1 = CID.parse('bagaaierasords4njcts6vs7qvdjfcvgnume4hqohf65zsfguprqphs3icwea')
v1.toString()
//> 'bagaaierasords4njcts6vs7qvdjfcvgnume4hqohf65zsfguprqphs3icwea'

const v0 = CID.parse('QmdfTbBqBPQ7VNxZEYEj14VmRuZBkqFbiwReogJgS1zR1n')
v0.toString()
//> 'QmdfTbBqBPQ7VNxZEYEj14VmRuZBkqFbiwReogJgS1zR1n'
v0.toV1().toString()
//> 'bafybeihdwdcefgh4dqkjv67uzcmw7ojee6xedzdetojuzjevtenxquvyku'

Multicodec Encoders / Decoders / Codecs

This library defines BlockEncoder, BlockDecoder and BlockCodec interfaces. Codec implementations should conform to the BlockCodec interface which implements both BlockEncoder and BlockDecoder. Here is an example implementation of JSON BlockCodec.

export const { name, code, encode, decode } = {
  name: 'json',
  code: 0x0200,
  encode: json => new TextEncoder().encode(JSON.stringify(json)),
  decode: bytes => JSON.parse(new TextDecoder().decode(bytes))
}

Multihash Hashers

This library defines MultihashHasher and MultihashDigest interfaces and convinient function for implementing them:

import * as hasher from 'multiformats/hashes/hasher'

const sha256 = hasher.from({
  // As per multiformats table
  // https://github.com/multiformats/multicodec/blob/master/table.csv#L9
  name: 'sha2-256',
  code: 0x12,

  encode: (input) => new Uint8Array(crypto.createHash('sha256').update(input).digest())
})

const hash = await sha256.digest(json.encode({ hello: 'world' }))
CID.create(1, json.code, hash)

//> CID(bagaaierasords4njcts6vs7qvdjfcvgnume4hqohf65zsfguprqphs3icwea)

Traversal

This library contains higher-order functions for traversing graphs of data easily.

walk() walks through the links in each block of a DAG calling a user-supplied loader function for each one, in depth-first order with no duplicate block visits. The loader should return a Block object and can be used to inspect and collect block ordering for a full DAG walk. The loader should throw on error, and return null if a block should be skipped by walk().

import { walk } from 'multiformats/traversal'
import * as Block from 'multiformats/block'
import * as codec from 'multiformats/codecs/json'
import { sha256 as hasher } from 'multiformats/hashes/sha2'

// build a DAG (a single block for this simple example)
const value = { hello: 'world' }
const block = await Block.encode({ value, codec, hasher })
const { cid } = block
console.log(cid)
//> CID(bagaaierasords4njcts6vs7qvdjfcvgnume4hqohf65zsfguprqphs3icwea)

// create a loader function that also collects CIDs of blocks in
// their traversal order
const load = (cid, blocks) => async (cid) => {
  // fetch a block using its cid
  // e.g.: const block = await fetchBlockByCID(cid)
  blocks.push(cid)
  return block
}

// collect blocks in this DAG starting from the root `cid`
const blocks = []
await walk({ cid, load: load(cid, blocks) })

console.log(blocks)
//> [CID(bagaaierasords4njcts6vs7qvdjfcvgnume4hqohf65zsfguprqphs3icwea)]

Legacy interface

blockcodec-to-ipld-format converts a multiformats BlockCodec into an interface-ipld-format for use with the ipld package. This can help bridge IPLD codecs implemented using the structure and interfaces defined here to existing code that assumes, or requires interface-ipld-format. This bridge also includes the relevant TypeScript definitions.

Implementations

By default, no base encodings (other than base32 & base58btc), hash functions, or codec implementations are exposed by multiformats, you need to import the ones you need yourself.

Multibase codecs

bases	import	repo
base16	multiformats/bases/base16	multiformats/js-multiformats
base32, base32pad, base32hex, base32hexpad, base32z	multiformats/bases/base32	multiformats/js-multiformats
base64, base64pad, base64url, base64urlpad	multiformats/bases/base64	multiformats/js-multiformats
base58btc, base58flick4	multiformats/bases/base58	multiformats/js-multiformats

Other (less useful) bases implemented in multiformats/js-multiformats include: base2, base8, base10, base36 and base256emoji.

Multihash hashers

hashes	import	repo
sha2-256, sha2-512	multiformats/hashes/sha2	multiformats/js-multiformats
sha3-224, sha3-256, sha3-384,sha3-512, shake-128, shake-256, keccak-224, keccak-256, keccak-384, keccak-512	@multiformats/sha3	multiformats/js-sha3
identity	multiformats/hashes/identity	multiformats/js-multiformats
murmur3-128, murmur3-32	@multiformats/murmur3	multiformats/js-murmur3
blake2b-*, blake2s-*	@multiformats/blake2	multiformats/js-blake2

IPLD codecs (multicodec)

codec	import	repo
raw	multiformats/codecs/raw	multiformats/js-multiformats
json	multiformats/codecs/json	multiformats/js-multiformats
dag-cbor	@ipld/dag-cbor	ipld/js-dag-cbor
dag-json	@ipld/dag-json	ipld/js-dag-json
dag-pb	@ipld/dag-pb	ipld/js-dag-pb
dag-jose	dag-jose	ceramicnetwork/js-dag-jose

Install

$ npm i multiformats

Browser <script> tag

Loading this module through a script tag will make its exports available as Multiformats in the global namespace.

<script src="https://unpkg.com/multiformats/dist/index.min.js"></script>

API Docs

• https://multiformats.github.io/js-multiformats

License

Licensed under either of

• Apache 2.0, (LICENSE-APACHE / http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
• MIT (LICENSE-MIT / http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

Contribution

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.

Changelog

13.4.1 (2025-09-15)

Dependencies

• dev: bump crypto-hash from 3.1.0 to 4.0.0 (#332) (bbc711a)

Similar packages

Other packages similar to multiformats

ipfs

The ipfs package is a JavaScript implementation of the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), a peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol. While multiformats provides the underlying protocols for data encoding and addressing, ipfs builds on these protocols to offer a complete decentralized file storage and sharing system.

multihashes

The multihashes package is a standalone implementation of the multihash protocol, focusing specifically on hashing. It provides similar functionality to the multihash feature in multiformats but does not include other protocols like multibase or CID.

cids

The cids package is a standalone implementation for handling CIDs, similar to the CID feature in multiformats. It focuses on parsing and creating CIDs, but does not include other multiformats protocols like multibase or multihash.