structjs - Python-style struct module in javascript

This module performs conversions between javascript values and C structs represented as javascript ArrayBuffer objects. This can be used in handling binary data stored in files or from network connections, among other sources. It uses Format Strings as compact descriptions of the layout of the C structs and the intended conversion to/from javascript values.

Note: Unlike Python struct, this module does not support native size and alignment (that wouldn't make much sense in a javascript). Instead, specify byte order and emit pad bytes explicitly.

Several methods of Struct take a buffer argument. This refers to ArrayBuffer objects.

Note: In Python struct the buffer argument refers to an object that implements the Buffer Protocol.

Functions

The module defines the following function:

struct(format)
Return a new object which writes and reads binary data according to the format string format.

Note: This is not a constructor, don't use new. In Python this is a constructor. Python has functions for packing and unpacking without the intermediate step of creating an object using the struct function. However I decided against including such functions as they are redundant, and I did not want to clutter the interface unnecessarily. They are currently in the code but inside a comment.

Objects

The compiled Struct objects returned by struct support the following methods and attributes:

pack(v1, v2, ...)
Return an ArrayBuffer object containing the values v1, v2, ... packed according to format. The arguments must match the values required by the format exactly (result.byteLength will equal size).

pack_into(buffer, offset, v1, v2, ...)
Pack the values v1, v2, ... according to format and write the packed bytes into the ArrayBuffer buffer starting at position offset. Note that offset is a required argument.

unpack(buffer)
Unpack from the ArrayBuffer buffer (presumably packed by pack()) according to format. The result is a tuple even if it contains exactly one item. The buffer’s size in bytes must match the size required by the format, as reflected by size.

unpack_from(buffer, offset=0)
Unpack from ArrayBuffer buffer starting at position offset, according to format. The result is a tuple even if it contains exactly one item. The buffer’s size in bytes, minus offset, must be at least the size required by the format, as reflected by size.

iter_unpack(buffer)
Iteratively unpack from the buffer buffer according to format. This function returns an iterator which will read equally-sized chunks from the buffer until all its contents have been consumed. The buffer’s size in bytes must be a multiple of the size required by the format, as reflected by size (this is not enforced, remaining bytes are ignored silently).

Each iteration yields a tuple as specified by the format string.

format
The format string used to construct this object.

size
The calculated size of the struct (and hence of the ArrayBuffer object produced by the pack() method) corresponding to format.

Format Strings

Format strings are the mechanism used to specify the expected layout when packing and unpacking data. They are built up from Format Characters, which specify the type of data being packed/unpacked. In addition, there are special characters for controlling the Byte Order.

Note: Unlike Python struct, this module does not have special format characters for indicating native size and alignment.

Byte Order

By default, C types are represented in the standard format and byte order, and not aligned in any way (no pad bytes are inserted).

Note: This is different from Python struct which uses native format.

The first character of the format string can be used to indicate the byte order, according to the following table:

Differences from Python struct:
Python struct has more options that don't make as much sense for javascript.
No '@', '=', '!'. Use '>' for '!'.
No native support.
No alignment. Use 'x' for padding.

Format Characters

Format characters have the following meaning; the conversion between C and ES values should be obvious given their types. The ‘Size’ column refers to the size of the packed value in bytes:

Differences from Python:
No 'l', 'L', 'q', 'Q', 'P', no integers, no floats, no doubles, only numbers.
For 'l' and 'L' use 'i' and 'I'. For 'P' use 'H' or 'I' as appropriate.
'q' and 'Q' cannot be fully represented in javascript. Use 'i' or 'I' instead.
No 'n' or 'N'.

A format character may be preceded by an integral repeat count. For example, the format string '4h' means exactly the same as 'hhhh'.

Whitespace characters between formats are not accepted.

Note: Python struct ignores whitespace characters (a count and its format must not contain whitespace though).

For the 's' format character, the count is interpreted as the size of the string, not a repeat count like for the other format characters; for example, '10s' means a single 10-byte string, while '10c' means 10 characters. If a count is not given, it defaults to 1. For packing, the string is truncated or padded with null bytes as appropriate to make it fit. For unpacking, the resulting string always has exactly the specified number of bytes.

Note: Python struct accepts a special case; '0s' means a single, empty string (while '0c' means 0 characters).

Note: Python guarantees that when packing a value x using one of the integer formats ('b', 'B', 'h', 'H', 'i', 'I', 'l', 'L', 'q', 'Q'), if x is outside the valid range for that format then struct.error is raised.

The 'p' format character encodes a “Pascal string”, meaning a short variable-length string stored in a fixed number of bytes, given by the count. The first byte stored is the length of the string, or 255, whichever is smaller. The bytes of the string follow. If the string passed in to pack() is too long (longer than the count minus 1), only the leading count-1 bytes of the string are stored. If the string is shorter than count-1, it is padded with null bytes so that exactly count bytes in all are used. Note that for unpack(), the 'p' format character consumes count bytes, but that the string returned can never contain more than 255 characters.

For the '?' format character, the return value is either true or false. When packing, the truth value of the argument object is used. Either 0 or 1 in the native or standard bool representation will be packed, and any non-zero value will be true when unpacking.

Examples:

A basic example of packing/unpacking three integers:

let struct = require("./struct"), s = struct('hhi'), b = new ArrayBuffer(s.size)
s.pack(1, 2, 3) // ArrayBuffer {}
new Uint8Array(s.pack(1, 2, 3)) // Uint8Array { '0': 0, '1': 1, '2': 0, '3': 2, '4': 0, '5': 0, '6': 0, '7': 3 }
s.unpack(new Uint8Array([0, 1, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 3]).buffer) // [ 1, 2, 3 ]
s.size // 8
s.pack_into(b, 0, 1, 2, 3)
new Uint8Array(b) // Uint8Array { '0': 0, '1': 1, '2': 0, '3': 2, '4': 0, '5': 0, '6': 0, '7': 3 }

Unpacked fields can be named by assigning them to variables:

let struct = require("./struct"), s = struct("<10sHHb")
let record = s.pack("Raymond   ", 4658, 264, 8)
let [name, serialnum, school, gradelevel] = s.unpack(record)