Node.js Buffer from string not correct - node.js

To create a utf-8 buffer from a string in javascript on the web you do this:
var message = JSON.stringify('ping');
var buf = new TextEncoder().encode(message).buffer;
console.log('buf:', buf);
console.log('buf.buffer.byteLength:', buf.byteLength);
This logs:
buf: ArrayBuffer { byteLength: 6 }
buf.buffer.byteLength: 6
However in Node.js if I do this:
var nbuf = Buffer.from(message, 'utf8');
console.log('nbuf:', nbuf);
console.log('nbuf.buffer:', nbuf.buffer);
console.log('nbuf.buffer.byteLength:', nbuf.buffer.byteLength);
it logs this:
nbuf: <Buffer 22 70 69 6e 67 22>
nbuf.buffer: ArrayBuffer { byteLength: 8192 }
nbuf.buffer.byteLength: 8192
The byteLength is way to high. Am I doing something wrong here?
Thanks

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/ArrayBuffer
ArrayBuffer.prototype.byteLength Read only
The size, in bytes, of the array. This is established when the array is constructed and cannot be changed. Read only.
It seems you should not assume byteLength property to be equal to the actual byte length occupied by the elements in the ArrayBuffer.
In order to get the actual byte length, I suggest using Buffer.byteLength(string[, encoding])
Documentation: https://nodejs.org/api/buffer.html#buffer_class_method_buffer_bytelength_string_encoding
For example,
var message = JSON.stringify('ping');
console.log('byteLength: ', Buffer.byteLength(message));
correctly gives
byteLength: 6

Related

Publishing multiple buffers in mqttjs

So I want to send some bytes from a NodeJs script to my mosquitto server over mqtt. For this I am using the client library MQTT.js. To send raw data, the library supports Buffers (also Strings).
All of it works just fine until I try to publish multiple bytes (buffers) in a row. This will always result in publishing only the last buffer but multiple times. When I log the same buffers to the console instead of using mqttjs, I get my expected results (increment from 0xfa to 0xff). However, publishing normal Strings in a row works without trouble. The behaviour of this is inexplicable for me.
Not quite sure if this is a problem from mqttjs, or if I’m just dumb. Would appreciate a short explenation on what i'm doing wrong since i did not find any related issues.
var buf = Buffer.from([0xfa]);
client.on('connect', function () {
client.subscribe('LED', function (err) {
if (!err) {
for (; buf[0] < 0xff; buf[0]++) {
client.publish('LED', buf);
}
}
})
})
Expected message (Result from logging to the console instead of publishing):
<Buffer fa>
<Buffer fb>
<Buffer fc>
<Buffer fd>
<Buffer fe>
Message that mosquitto receives:
<Buffer ff>
<Buffer ff>
<Buffer ff>
<Buffer ff>
<Buffer ff>
A funny discovery i made. If you put the publish before the loop (buf[0] = 0xfa):
client.publish('LED', buf)
for (; buf[0] < 0xff; buf[0]++) {;}
The output is still:
<Buffer ff>
NodeJS is a pass by reference language, this means that the publish method is working on the same instance of the buffer object all the time. You are just passing a reference to the same structure to the publish method.
In this case the for loop is running quicker than the client can send the messages so by the time it gets round to actually packing the buffer's content into the message it has already been updated to be 0xff
You will need to create new buffer objects (or clone the existing values) for each message you want to send.

Bleno throws an index-out-of-range error on binary data

My code, that provides a BLE service, is running under nodejs and is using bleno package.
My service characteristic supports read and notify.
Here is my simplified implementation of onSubscribe function:
function(maxValueSize, updateValueCallback) {
var a = buildPacket();
var buf = Buffer.from(a);
console.log('Buffer: ', buf);
updateValueCallback(this.RESULT_SUCCESS, buf);
}
Function buildPacket returns a Uint8Array of 20 bytes. The console statement shows that the buffer is of 20 bytes and has the expected values.
However, call to updateValueCallback throws an error:
RangeError: Index out of range
at checkInt (buffer.js:1187:11)
at Buffer.writeUInt8 (buffer.js:1233:5)
at Gatt.<anonymous> (/home/pi/Dev/MyTest/node_modules/bleno/lib/hci socket/gatt.js:881:33)
Here is the relevant code from gatt.js:
878 if (useNotify) {
879 var notifyMessage = new Buffer(3 + dataLength);
880
881 notifyMessage.writeUInt8(ATT_OP_HANDLE_NOTIFY, 0);
882 notifyMessage.writeUInt16LE(valueHandle, 1);
Is there any step I am missing?
Most examples on bleno I read seem to send string data. However, I need to send binary data. Is there anything special required for sending binary data?
Turns out updateValueCallback takes only one parameter. I should have looked at bleno examples a bit more carefully:-(.
Just passing buf as the sole parameter fixed the problem.

how can i parse JSON coming from a nrf24 Buffer?

I am sending a valid JSON object constructed with ArduinoJSON to a RaspberryPi running node.js with the library https://github.com/natevw/node-nrf over a nrf24 radio link. The node.js server receives the data seemingly without problem. But for some reason I can't JSON.parse() the object (or buffer?) without getting a SyntaxError: Unexpected token in JSON at position ...
For some reason the node-nrf library receives data backwards, so i need to reverse the order of the bytes with Array.prototype.reverse.call(d), and then console.log(d.toString()) and everything seems fine. In this case, the console gets Got data: [{"key":"a1","value":150}]. At this point, the content of the buffer looks like : Buffer 5b 7b 22 6b 65 79 22 3a 22 61 31 22 2c 22 76 61 6c 75 65 22 3a 31 35 30 7d 5d 00 00 00 00 00 00. Those are the actual 32 bytes that the nrf24 buffer contains i guess.
But then, when the code gets to the JSON.parse() call, i get SyntaxError: Unexpected token in JSON at position 26. This is the position my object data actually ends in the buffer.
I've also experimented with .toJSON() and JSON.stringify() , but can't actually get a proper object to use ( ie. obj.key, obj.value). It's only returning undefined properties. It seems to me the parsing fails when it reaches the end of the object. I've also tried to match the buffer size with the actual size of the message just to see if the parsing would succeed to no avail !
I am probably very mixed up in concepts of buffers, streams, pipes and objects ... what am i doing wrong ?
I need ideas (or fixes!)
Code running on the receiving end in node.js:
var nrf = NRF24.connect(spiDev, cePin, irqPin);
nrf.printDetails();
nrf.channel(0x4c).transmitPower('PA_MIN').dataRate('1Mbps').crcBytes(2).autoRetransmit({count:15, delay:4000}).begin(function () {
var rx = nrf.openPipe('rx', pipes[0]);
rx.on('data', d => {
let obj = Array.prototype.reverse.call(d);
try {
console.log("Got data: ", d.toString());
console.log(obj);
obj = JSON.parse(obj);
console.log(obj);
} catch (err) {
console.error(err)
}
});
});
I don't think the problem is here in forming the JSON message. But for reference purposes, this is the code running on the Arduino:
#include <SPI.h>
#include <nRF24L01.h>
#include <RF24.h>
#include <ArduinoJson.h>
const uint64_t addresses[5] = {0x65646f4e32LL,0x65646f4e31LL} ;
RF24 radio(7,8);
char output[32];
void setup()
{
Serial.begin(115200);
radio.begin();
radio.setAutoAck(true);
radio.setDataRate(RF24_1MBPS);
radio.enableDynamicPayloads();
radio.setCRCLength(RF24_CRC_16);
radio.setChannel(0x4c);
radio.setPALevel(RF24_PA_MAX);
radio.openWritingPipe(addresses[0]);
}
void loop()
{
const int capacity = JSON_ARRAY_SIZE(2) + 2*JSON_OBJECT_SIZE(2);
StaticJsonBuffer<capacity> jb;
JsonArray& arr = jb.createArray();
JsonObject& obj1 = jb.createObject();
obj1["key"] = "a1";
obj1["value"] = analogRead(A1);
arr.add(obj1);
arr.printTo(output);
bool ok = radio.write(&output, sizeof(output));
arr.printTo(Serial);
Serial.print(ok);
delay(1000);
}
Most likely you have NUL characters at the end of the string. JSON.parse will refuse to parse it.
let obj = '[{"key":"a1","value":150}]\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00';
JSON.parse(obj);
Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token  in JSON at position 26
If you remove the NUL characters, parsing succeeds:
let obj = '[{"key":"a1","value":150}]\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00';
obj = obj.replace(/\0/g, "");
JSON.parse(obj);
Parse 'buffer data' into 'string' like:
rx.on('data', d => {
try {
let obj = d.toString();
console.log(obj);
obj = JSON.parse(obj);
console.log(obj);
} catch (err) {
console.error(err)
}
});

nodejs Buffer toString changed original buffer

in node.js
const buffer = Buffer.from('000000a6', 'hex');
console.log(buffer); // <Buffer 00 00 00 a6>
const bufferString = buffer.toString();
const newBuffer = Buffer.from(bufferString);
console.log(newBuffer); // <Buffer 00 00 00 ef bf bd>
Why convert buffer to string, then convert the string back to buffer, the new buffer is different from the original one?
I tried toString('hex') toString('binary') or other encode, like ascii, etc. All these encodes changed the original buffer.
buffer.toString(encode) use the default encode utf8, Buffer.from(string, encode) also use the default encode utf8, it still different.
How can I convert buffer to string, and convert it back to buffer exactly as the original buffer?
PS: This question comes from when I want to send request body as a buffer. I just send to the server, but the server gets .
PPS: The server is not in my control. So I'm not able to use Buffer.from(string, 'hex') to parse request body buffer.toString('hex').
No need to convert into string like const bufferString = buffer.toString();
const buffer = Buffer.from('000000a6', 'hex');
console.log(buffer); //
const bufferString = buffer;
const newBuffer = Buffer.from(bufferString);
console.log(newBuffer);
In other words, you're converting a buffer to a string and back to a buffer using the same encoding both times and the buffer isn't the same? Here's a function to test whether an input string will stay the same for a given encoding. This should tell you which encodings are likely to be problematic.
var f = (buf, enc) => Buffer.from(buf.toString(enc), enc).every((e,i) => e === buf[i]);
f("hello world", "utf16le"); // ==> returns true
f("hello world", "binary"); // ==> returns true
UTF8 is the default encoding if you don't specify one, so the Buffer sequence in your original answer is very likely bad UTF8 or needs to be escaped in some other way to correctly map it to a UTF8 string.

Architecture of code using node js

I am having problems with my code architecture and am looking for advice. I am sending multiple read request to a server via udp and printing the read response out. An example of how the request and response look are below. I am getting the response back as one large hex string starting at 0008.. I need a way for the code to know how many addresses were sent to be read and what data size was requested and take that into account on printing out the data. Since the data size can change, I can not just split the string up using a definite value. I am not looking for actual code but rather just some ideas on how one could tackle this.
Request
00 06 - Opcode
00 00 - Block #
02 - Count
34 97 00 20 - Address 1
04 00 - Data Size 1 (bytes)
30 97 00 20 - Address 2
01 00 - Data Size 2 (bytes)
Response- 00080001e60300009
00 08 - Opcode
00 01 - Block #
e6 03 00 00 - Data 1
09 - Data 2
What I am printing right now- e603000009
How I want it printed - Address 1 = e6030000
Address 2 = 09 ...
Address 3 = 00 00
etc.
(it would know what it is a new data by the data size that was requested and the # of addresses that were requested)
Part of code where I am sending a read request and emitting it to html
app.post('/output3', function(req, res){
res.sendFile(__dirname + '/upload3.html');
//Define the host and port values of UDP
var HOST= '192.168.0.136';
var PORT= 69;
var io = require('socket.io')(http);
//Mulitple parameters
//setInterval will send message constantly.
var client= dgram.createSocket('udp4');
var counter = 0;
//array for addresses
var address=[];
//array for size
var size=[];
//iterate through all addresses and convert to little endian
for (var i=0; i<req.body.address.length; i++) {
var n= req.body.address[i];
var s = n.toString(16).match(/.{1,2}/g);
address[i]= s.reverse().join("").toString(16); // ==> "0x985c0020" (= 2556166176)
}
//iterate through all size and make hex strings and little endian
for (var i=0; i<req.body.size.length; i++) {
function pad(number, length) {
var my_string = '' + number;
while (my_string.length < length) {
my_string = '0' + my_string;
}
return my_string;
}
var n2= pad(req.body.size[i], 4);
var s2 = n2.toString(16).match(/.{1,2}/g);
size[i]= s2.reverse().join("").toString(16);
}
//empty string to add address and size together
var x='';
for (var i=0; i<req.body.address.length; i++) {
x += address[i]+size[i];
}
console.log(req.body.size);
var mrq= read(x);
//Open listener to recieve intial message and print in to webpage
io.on('connection', function(socket){
var mrq= read(x);
io.emit('mrq', mrq);
});
function read() {
// Memory Read Request is a 16-bit word with a value of 6
var message = '0006'
// Block number is a 16-bit word that we will always set to 0
message += '0000'
// Count is variable, and calculated by the size of the parameter list
message += '02'
for (var i=0; i < arguments.length; i++) {
message += arguments[i];
}
return message;
}
var message = new Buffer(mrq, 'hex');
counter++;
var loop= setInterval(function () {
//Sends packets to UDP and setInterval sends packets again for specific time
client.send(message, 0, message.length, PORT, HOST, function (err, bytes) {
if (err) throw err;
});
if (counter === 1000000000000000) {
clearInterval(loop);
}
}, 1/50);
//Open listener to recieve intial message and print in to webpage
io.on('connection', function(socket){
client.on('message', function( message, rinfo ){
//hex string
var temp = message.readUIntBE(0, 2);
//console.log(message.toString(16));
io.emit('temp', temp);
});
});
Showing your current code would help us answer this better.
but in general, the way would be to use a write stream and push your string out in chunks, rather than as a whole block.

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