What is buffer in Node.js ?

Pure JavaScript is great with Unicode encoded strings, but it does not handle binary data very well. It is not problematic when we perform an operation on data at browser level but at the time of dealing with TCP stream and performing a read-write operation on the file system is required to deal with pure binary data. To satisfy this need Node.js use Buffer, So in this article, we are going to know about buffer in Node.js.

Buffers in Node.js: The Buffer class in Node.js is used to perform operations on raw binary data. Generally, Buffer refers to the particular memory location in memory. Buffer and array have some similarities, but the difference is array can be any type, and it can be resizable. Buffers only deal with binary data, and it can not be resizable. Each integer in a buffer represents a byte. console.log() function is used to print the Buffer instance.

Methods to perform the operations on Buffer:

No	Method	Description
1	Buffer.alloc(size)	It creates a buffer and allocates size to it.
2	Buffer.from(initialization)	It initializes the buffer with given data.
3	Buffer.write(data)	It writes the data on the buffer.
4	toString()	It read data from the buffer and returned it.
5	Buffer.isBuffer(object)	It checks whether the object is a buffer or not.
6	Buffer.length	It returns the length of the buffer.
7	Buffer.copy(buffer,subsection size)	It copies data from one buffer to another.
8	Buffer.slice(start, end=buffer.length)	It returns the subsection of data stored in a buffer.
9	Buffer.concat([buffer,buffer])	It concatenates two buffers.

Filename: index.js

Javascript

// Different Method to create Buffer
var buffer1 = Buffer.alloc(100);
var buffer2 = new Buffer('GFG');
var buffer3 = Buffer.from([1, 2, 3, 4]);

// Writing data to Buffer
buffer1.write("Happy Learning");

// Reading data from Buffer
var a = buffer1.toString('utf-8');
console.log(a);

// Check object is buffer or not
console.log(Buffer.isBuffer(buffer1));

// Check length of Buffer
console.log(buffer1.length);

// Copy buffer
var bufferSrc = new Buffer('ABC');
var bufferDest = Buffer.alloc(3);
bufferSrc.copy(bufferDest);

var Data = bufferDest.toString('utf-8');
console.log(Data);

// Slicing data
var bufferOld = new Buffer('GeeksForGeeks');
var bufferNew = bufferOld.slice(0, 4);
console.log(bufferNew.toString());

// concatenate two buffer
var bufferOne = new Buffer('Happy Learning ');
var bufferTwo = new Buffer('With GFG');
var bufferThree = Buffer.concat([bufferOne, bufferTwo]);
console.log(bufferThree.toString());

Run the index.js file using the following command:

node index.js

Output:

Happy Learning
true
100
ABC
Geek
Happy Learning With GFG

Reference: https://nodejs.org/api/buffer.html

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