Big Unsigned Integer Formatter

An arbitrary length unsigned integer formatter library for Node.js.

JavaScript uses IEEE 754 double-precision floats to represents numbers. That works perfectly fine for small numbers, however, it is an issue for big integers. This means they lose integer precision for values beyond +/- 2 pow 53

Problem

Presentation of small integer in decimal format works fine (e.g. 0x1FF). However, we can see an issue when we try to convert big integers like 0x1234567890abcdeffedcba908765421 to string decimal.

(0x1FF).toString(10) // returns '511' - correct
(0x1234567890abcdeffedcba908765421).toString(10) 

// output is '1.5123660750094533e+36' - incorrect - lose integer precision

Solution

Node.js biguint-format module has been built in order to help display very large (arbitrary lengh) unsigned integers without any integer precision lose.

Example:

var biguint  = require('biguint-format');

// 0x1234567890abcdeffedcba908765421 split into bytes
biguint.format([0x1, 0x23, 0x45, 0x67, 0x89, 0x0a, 0xbc, 0xde, 0xff, 0xed, 0xcb, 0xa9, 0x08, 0x76, 0x54, 0x21], 'dec')

// output value is '1512366075009453296626403467035300897' - no integer precision lose

Usage

The biguint-format module has format(number, format [, options]) function which performs number conversion to the required string format.

The number argument represents an arbitrary lenght unsigned integer number to be converted to string. It can be provided in one of the following formats:

• Node.js Buffer e.g. new Buffer([0x1, 0xFF])
• An array of bytes (values from 0x00 to 0xFF) e.g. [0x1, 0xFF].
• A string with a number in a hexadecimal format e.g. 0x1FF0A or 1FF0A

The format argument represents output string format and it can be one of the following options:

• dec - convertion to decimal format e.g. 123324884
• bin - conversion to binary format e.g. 1100101010
• hex - conversion to hexadecimal format e.g. 0xADFFAA11
• oct - conversion to octet format e.g. 07771

The options argument (optional) is an object which provides some additional conversion details:

• format - specifies format of the input number. It can be either BE for Big Endian or LE for Little Endian. BE is a default value. Check wikipedia for more details.
• prefix - output string prefix. Note that this option is not supported by dec conversion.
• groupsize - splits output string into groups of groupsize lenght characters.
• delimiter - specifes delimiter string to be inserted in between character groups. Default value is space. It is quite handy option when dealing with large numbers.

Examples

var biguint  = require('biguint-format');

var buffer1 = new Buffer([0x63, 0xA7, 0x27]);
var buffer2 = new Buffer([0x27, 0xA7, 0x63]);

biguint.format(buffer1, 'dec', {format:'LE'})   // returns '2598755'
biguint.format(buffer2, 'dec', {format:'BE'})   // returns '2598755'
biguint.format(buffer2, 'dec')                  // returns '2598755'

biguint.format(buffer1, 'hex', {format:'LE'})   // returns '27a763'
biguint.format(buffer2, 'hex', {format:'BE'})   // returns '27a763'
biguint.format(buffer2, 'hex', {prefix:'0x'})   // returns '0x27a763'

biguint.format(buffer2, 'bin')                  // 001001111010011101100011
biguint.format(buffer2, 'bin', {groupsize:8})   // 00100111 10100111 01100011
biguint.format(buffer2, 'oct')                  // 11723543
biguint.format(buffer2, 'oct', {prefix:'0'})    // 011723543

Usage of delimiter option which helps with large numbers e.g.

biguint.format([0x2A, 0xFF, 0x1E, 0x22, 0x11, 0x30, 0x12, 0x2F], 'bin')
biguint.format([0x2A, 0xFF, 0x1E, 0x22, 0x11, 0x30, 0x12, 0x2F], 'bin', {groupsize:8})

// returned values
0010101011111111000111100010001000010001001100000001001000101111        // no delimiter
00101010 11111111 00011110 00100010 00010001 00110000 00010010 00101111 // with delimiter

Author

Writen by Tom Pawlak - Blog

License

Copyright (c) 2014 Tom Pawlak

MIT License : http://tompawlak.blogspot.com/p/mit.html