construct-js

construct-js is a library for creating byte level data structures. It focuses on a declarative API and simplicity of use.

npm i construct-js

• 1. Examples
• 2. Changelog
• 3. API
  • 3.1 Struct
    • 3.1.1 field
    • 3.1.2 get
    • 3.1.3 getOffset
    • 3.1.4 getDeep
    • 3.1.5 getDeepOffset
    • 3.1.6 computeBufferSize
    • 3.1.7 toArrayBuffer
    • 3.1.8 toBuffer
    • 3.1.9 toBytes
  • 3.2 BitStruct
    • 3.2.1 flag
    • 3.2.2 multiBit
    • 3.2.3 getOffset
    • 3.2.4 computeBufferSize
    • 3.2.5 toBuffer
    • 3.2.6 toArrayBuffer
    • 3.2.7 toArray
  • 3.3 Fields
    • 3.3.0 Common Methods
    • 3.3.1 U8
    • 3.3.2 U16
    • 3.3.3 U32
    • 3.3.4 S8
    • 3.3.5 S16
    • 3.3.6 S32
    • 3.3.7 RawString
    • 3.3.8 NullTerminatedString
    • 3.3.9 U8s
    • 3.3.10 U16s
    • 3.3.11 U32s
    • 3.3.12 S8s
    • 3.3.13 S16s
    • 3.3.14 S32s
    • 3.3.15 Pointer8
    • 3.3.16 Pointer16
    • 3.3.17 Pointer32
    • 3.3.18 SizeOf8
    • 3.3.19 SizeOf16
    • 3.3.20 SizeOf32

Examples

There are more examples in the examples folder.

The following example builds a completely valid zip archive with one file inside - helloworld.txt.

const fs = require('fs');
const { RawString, U16LE, U32LE, Struct, Pointer32LE } = require('construct-js');

const data = RawString('helloworldhelloworldhelloworldhelloworldhelloworldhelloworldhelloworldhelloworld');
const filename = RawString('helloworld.txt');

// Create a stub for the top level struct that can be referenced by other structs
const zipFile = Struct('ZipFile');

const sharedHeaderInfo = Struct('sharedHeaderInfo')
  .field('minVersion', U16LE(10))
  .field('gpFlag', U16LE(0))
  .field('compressionMethod', U16LE(0))
  .field('lastModifiedTime', U16LE(0))
  .field('lastModifiedDate', U16LE(0))
  .field('crc32', U32LE(0))
  .field('compressedSized', U32LE(data.byteLength))
  .field('uncompressedSized', U32LE(data.byteLength))
  .field('filenameSize', U16LE(filename.byteLength))
  .field('extraFieldLength', U16LE(0));

const localHeader = Struct('localHeader')
  .field('header', U32LE(0x04034b50))
  .field('sharedHeaderInfo', sharedHeaderInfo)
  .field('filename', filename);

const centralDirectory = Struct('centralDirectory')
  .field('header', U32LE(0x02014b50))
  .field('madeByVersion', U16LE(10))
  .field('sharedHeaderInfo', sharedHeaderInfo)
  .field('fileCommentSize', U16LE(0))
  .field('diskNumber', U16LE(0))
  .field('internalFileAttributes', U16LE(0))
  .field('externalFileAttributes', U32LE(0))
  .field('relativeOffset', U32LE(0))
  .field('filename', filename);

const endOfCentralDirectory = Struct('endOfCentralDirectory')
  .field('header', U32LE(0x06054b50))
  .field('diskNumber', U16LE(0))
  .field('centralDirDiskStart', U16LE(0))
  .field('numberOfCentralDirsOnDisk', U16LE(1))
  .field('totalNumberOfCentralDirs', U16LE(1))
  .field('centralDirSize', U32LE(0))
  .field('offsetToStart', Pointer32LE(zipFile, 'centralDirectory'))
  .field('commentLength', U16LE(0));

// Finalise the top level struct
zipFile
  .field('localHeader', localHeader)
  .field('data', data)
  .field('centralDirectory', centralDirectory)
  .field('endOfCentralDirectory', endOfCentralDirectory);

const fileBuffer = zipFile.toBuffer();

fs.writeFileSync('./test.zip', fileBuffer);

Changelog

0.7.0

• Add TypeScript definition file

0.6.1

• Add .value() method to fields.

0.6.0

• Refactor the user-facing API to remove endianness flags in fields and instead create a field for little endian and big endian variations.

0.5.0

• Added NullTerminatedString field
• Fixed a bug in getDeep that allowed requesting nonsense values in the path

0.4.2

• Added Pointer8, Pointer16, Pointer32, SizeOf8, SizeOf16 and SizeOf32 fields

0.4.0

• Removed concept of endianness from Structs. All endianness information comes directly from the Fields themselves
• Removed deprecated Fields
• Renamed I8, I16, I32, I8s, I16s, I32s -> S8, S16, S32, S8s, S16s, S32s

0.3.0

• Allow the bit ordering to be specified for BitStructs

API

Struct

Struct(name)

Creates a Struct object.

field

.field(name, value)

Adds a field to the struct. name is used to lookup the field using struct.get(name). value must be either a Struct or one of the other data types provided by construct-js.

get

.get(name)

Returns the field with that name.

getOffset

.getOffset(name)

Returns the byte offset within the struct of the field with that name.

getDeep

.getDeep(path)

Returns the field within multiple structs, where path is a . separated string. For example:

const struct = Struct('firstStruct')
  .field('aRawString', RawString('ABC'));

const struct2 = Struct('secondStruct')
  .field('deeperStruct', struct);

struct2.getDeep('deeperStruct.aRawString');

getDeepOffset

.getDeepOffset(path)

Returns the byte offset within multiple structs, where path is a . separated string.

computeBufferSize

.computeBufferSize()

Returns the size of the struct in bytes.

toArrayBuffer

.toArrayBuffer()

Returns an ArrayBuffer representation of the Struct. You should use this if working in the browser.

toBuffer

.toBuffer()

Returns a Buffer representation of the Struct.

toBytes

.toBytes()

Returns a regular Array representation of the Struct.

BitStruct

BitStructLSB(name) and BitStructMSB(name)

Creates a BitStruct object, for storing and addressing data on the sub-byte level. If using BitStructLSB, the resulting buffer will consider the fields to be ordered from the 0th bit i.e. the first field in the BitStruct will be the least significant bit in the Buffer. If using BitStructMSB, the Buffer will write the bits in the opposite order

Note: When bitStruct.toBuffer() is used, the resulting buffer will be byte aligned. This means if the size of the BitStruct is 12-bits, the resulting buffer will be 16-bits (2 bytes). When using BitStructLSB, the most significant bits will be padded.

flag

.flag(name, value)

Sets a 1-bit flag in the structure.

multiBit

.multiBit(name, size, value)

Sets a multi-bit flag of size.

getOffset

.getOffset(name)

Gets the bit offset of the data with name.

computeBufferSize

.computeBufferSize()

Returns the size of the BitStruct in bytes.

toBuffer

.toBuffer()

Returns a byte-aligned Buffer representing the BitStruct.

toArrayBuffer

.toArrayBuffer()

Returns a byte-aligned ArrayBuffer representing the BitStruct.

toArray

.toArray()

Returns a byte-aligned Array representing the BitStruct.

Fields

Common Methods

All fields contain some common properties and methods. These are:

.set(value | values)

Which sets either the value or values of the field.

.setIsLittleEndian(trueOrFalse)

Manually sets this field to little or big endian.

.value()

Returns the value of this field, as originally specified.

The rest of the properties should be considered private and not modified directly.

U8

U8(value)

A single 8-bit unsigned value.

U16

U16LE(value) or U16BE(value)

A single 16-bit unsigned value, in either big or little endian byte order.

U32

U32LE(value) or U32BE(value)

A single 32-bit unsigned value, in either big or little endian byte order.

S8

S8(value)

A single 8-bit signed value.

S16

S16LE(value) or S16BE(value)

A single 16-bit signed value, in either big or little endian byte order.

S32

S32LE(value) or S32BE(value)

A single 32-bit signed value, in either big or little endian byte order.

RawString

RawString(string)

A collection of 8-bit unsigned values, interpreted directly from the string provided. The size of the field is the byte length of the string (which is not always the string.length when considering unicode).

RawString.set(string)

(Re)sets the value using the provided string.

NullTerminatedString

NullTerminatedString(string)

A collection of 8-bit unsigned values, interpreted directly from the string provided. The size of the field is the byte length of the string (which is not always the string.length when considering unicode). This field appends a single 0x00 byte to the end of the data.

NullTerminatedString.set(string)

(Re)sets the value using the provided string. Automatically adds a new null termination byte.

U8s

U8s(array | number)

A collection of 8-bit unsigned values.

If the argument provided is an array, then the size of the field is array.length bytes, with each value corresponding to an 8-bit interpretation of that value.

U16s

U16LEs(array | number) or U16BEs(array | number)

A collection of 16-bit unsigned values, in either big or little endian byte order.

If the argument provided is an array, then the size of the field is array.length * 2 bytes, with each value corresponding to an 16-bit interpretation of that value.

U32s

U32LEs(array | number) or U32BEs(array | number)

A collection of 32-bit unsigned values, in either big or little endian byte order.

If the argument provided is an array, then the size of the field is array.length * 4 bytes, with each value corresponding to an 32-bit interpretation of that value.

S8s

S8s(array | number)

A collection of 8-bit signed values.

If the argument provided is an array, then the size of the field is array.length bytes, with each value corresponding to an 8-bit interpretation of that value.

S16s

S16LEs(array | number) or S16BEs(array | number)

A collection of 16-bit signed values, in either big or little endian byte order.

If the argument provided is an array, then the size of the field is array.length * 2 bytes, with each value corresponding to an 16-bit interpretation of that value.

S32s

S32LEs(array | number) or S32BEs(array | number)

A collection of 32-bit signed values, in either big or little endian byte order.

If the argument provided is an array, then the size of the field is array.length * 4 bytes, with each value corresponding to an 32-bit interpretation of that value.

Pointer8

Pointer8(struct, path)

Pointer8 takes a Struct and a path, and represents an 8-bit pointer (offset) to the field specified by the path in the provided struct.

Pointer16

Pointer16(struct, path)

Pointer16 take a Struct and a path, and represents a 16-bit pointer (offset) to the field specified by the path in the provided struct - in either little endian or big endian format.

Pointer32

Pointer32(struct, path)

Pointer32 take a Struct and a path, and represents a 32-bit pointer (offset) to the field specified by the path in the provided struct - in either little endian or big endian format.

SizeOf8

SizeOf8(structOrField)

SizeOf8 takes a Struct or a Field, and represents the size of the Struct or the Field as an 8-bit unsigned integer.

SizeOf16

SizeOf16LE(structOrField)

SizeOf16 take a Struct or a Field, and represents the size of the Struct or the Field as a 16-bit unsigned integer - in either little endian or big endian format.

SizeOf32

SizeOf32LE(structOrField)

SizeOf32 take a Struct or a Field, and represents the size of the Struct or the Field as a 32-bit unsigned integer - in either little endian or big endian format.