How can I convert a NodeJS binary buffer into a JavaScript ArrayBuffer?
Instances of Buffer are also instances of Uint8Array in node.js 4.x and higher. Thus, the most efficient solution is to access the buffer's own .buffer property directly. The Buffer constructor also takes an ArrayBufferView argument if you need to go the other direction.
Note that this will not create a copy, which means that writes to any ArrayBufferView will write through to the original Buffer instance.
In older versions, node.js has both ArrayBuffer as part of v8, but the Buffer class provides a more flexible API. In order to read or write to an ArrayBuffer, you only need to create a view and copy across.
From Buffer to ArrayBuffer:
function toArrayBuffer(buffer) {
const arrayBuffer = new ArrayBuffer(buffer.length);
const view = new Uint8Array(arrayBuffer);
for (let i = 0; i < buffer.length; ++i) {
view[i] = buffer[i];
}
return arrayBuffer;
}
From ArrayBuffer to Buffer:
function toBuffer(arrayBuffer) {
const buffer = Buffer.alloc(arrayBuffer.byteLength);
const view = new Uint8Array(arrayBuffer);
for (let i = 0; i < buffer.length; ++i) {
buffer[i] = view[i];
}
return buffer;
}