How to convert to buffer in node.js?

[coolaj86]

I need to take a long (from protobufjs) and convert it to base64 using node.js' Buffer... can you add the one-liner to an examples section or something?

I'm just a little confused as to how to do it and, unfortunately, I don't have a reference byte sequence with corresponding base64 string for what I'm working on so trial and error is... confusing... :-/

I was expecting something like

Buffer.from([l.high, l.low]).toString('base64');

but that didn't yield valid values.

[dcodeIO]

The low and highproperties hold the low respectively high 32 bits of the 64 bit long. Buffer.from, in your case, expects an array of octets.

var buf = Buffer.alloc(8);

// BE
  buf.writeInt32BE(l.high, 0);
  buf.writeInt32BE(l.low, 4);

// or LE
  buf.writeInt32LE(l.low, 0);
  buf.writeInt32LE(l.high, 4);

console.log(buf.toString("base64"));

[coolaj86]

Thanks! :)

Regarding LE/BE... since this is dependent on the architecture of the chip, does protobuf specify which order the bytes are in? Might I assume that a sane developer would choose "network order", that being BE, right?

I'll have to google a little bit. I'm confused as to why node doesn't have a whatever-my-cpu-wants option...

[dcodeIO]

protobuf always uses LE. Generally spoken, with JavaScript you always have to specify byte order explicitly.