Unibabel

Minimalistic Base64, TypedArrays, and UTF-8 / Unicode conversions in Browser (and Node) JavaScript. Optional add-on support for hex and base32.

See https://coolaj86.com/articles/base64-unicode-utf-8-javascript-and-you/

See also

• TextEncoder / TextDecoder
• DateView
• text-encoding
• TextEncoderLite (based on Buffer)
• TextEncoderLite (based on text-encoding)
• Beatgammit's base64-js

Example (Unicode to ArrayBuffer):

var unicodeString = "I'm a ☢ ☃ that plays 𝄢 guitar and spea̧͈͖ks Ar̽̾̈́͒͑ ̶̧̨̱̹̭̯ͧ̾ͬC̷̙̲̝͖ͭ̏ͥͮ͟Oͮ͏̮̪̝͍M̲̖͊̒ͪͩͬ̚̚͜!";
var buf = Unibabel.utf8ToBuffer(unicodeString);

Supported Environments

• VanillaJS
• Node.js
• CommonJS
• WebPack
• ... everything?

Browser Usage

CDN

• https://unpkg.com/unibabel@3.0.0/dist/unibabel.all.js
• https://unpkg.com/unibabel@3.0.0/dist/unibabel.all.min.js

Bower

bower install --save unibabel

<script src="/bower_components/unibabel/dist/unibabel.all.js"></script>

Node Usage

You don't need this module, as you already have Buffer and thirty-two:

For example:

var buf = Buffer.from('I ½ ♥ 💩', 'utf8');
buf.toString('hex');
buf.toString('base64');
buf.toString('ascii');
buf.toString('utf8');
buf.toString('binary'); // deprecated, do not use

However, you can use it (perhaps for isomorphic js?)

API

// TypedArray <--> UTF8
var uint8Array = Unibabel.strToUtf8Arr(str);
var str = Unibabel.utf8ArrToStr(uint8Array);

// TypedArray <--> Base64
var base64 = Unibabel.arrToBase64(uint8Array);
var uint8Array = Unibabel.base64ToArr(base64);

Normal APIs

unibabel.js

• utf8ToBuffer(utf8str) => array
• bufferToUtf8(array) => string
• utf8ToBase64(utf8str) => base64
• base64ToUtf8(base64) => string
• bufferToBase64(array) => base64
• base64ToBuffer(base64) => array

Hex APIs

unibabel.hex.js

• hexToBuffer(hexstr) => array
• bufferToHex(array) => hexstr

Base32 APIs

unibabel.base32.js

• base32ToBuffer(b32str) => array
• bufferToBase32(array) => b32str

Helper APIs

• utf8ToBinaryString(utf8str) => binstr
• binaryStringToUtf8(binstr) => utf8str
• bufferToBinaryString(buffer) => binstr
• binaryStringToBuffer(binstr) => array

Examples

// Base64

var myArray = Unibabel.base64ToArr(
	'QmFzZSA2NCDigJQgTW96aWxsYSBEZXZlbG9wZXIgTmV0d29yaw=='
); // "Base 64 \u2014 Mozilla Developer Network"
var myBuffer = Unibabel.base64ToArr(
	'QmFzZSA2NCDigJQgTW96aWxsYSBEZXZlbG9wZXIgTmV0d29yaw=='
).buffer; // "Base 64 \u2014 Mozilla Developer Network"

console.log(myBuffer.byteLength);

// Crazy Unicode

var sMyInput = "I'm a ☢ ☃ that plays 𝄢 guitar and spea̧͈͖ks Ar̽̾̈́͒͑ ̶̧̨̱̹̭̯ͧ̾ͬC̷̙̲̝͖ͭ̏ͥͮ͟Oͮ͏̮̪̝͍M̲̖͊̒ͪͩͬ̚̚͜!";
var aMyUTF8Input = Unibabel.strToUtf8Arr(sMyInput);
var sMyBase64 = Unibabel.arrToBase64(aMyUTF8Input);

alert(sMyBase64);

var aMyUTF8Output = Unibabel.base64ToArr(sMyBase64);
var sMyOutput = Unibabel.utf8ArrToStr(aMyUTF8Output);

alert(sMyOutput);

License

• index.js and unibabel.hex.js are dual-licensed as Apache 2.0 and MIT.
• unibabel.base32.js is a modified version of thirty-two and is therefore licensed MIT.

Some parts of the code were taken from MDN, which Mozilla has licensed in the Public Domain, which means that I am at liberty to re-license my copy under the Apache 2 and MIT licenses.

See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/MDN/About#Copyrights_and_licenses

ChangeLog

v3.0.0

• Proper node support (unibabel.node.js)
• Various minor updates

v2.1.0

Added unibabel.base32.js

v2.0.0

The new implementation is binary compatible with node.js, TextEncoder, and other more-common UTF-8 encodings.

It is also based on DOM APIs which result in much less code and are still backwards compatible all the way back to IE6 (not on purpose, just that it happens to work).

See https://coolaj86.com/articles/base64-unicode-utf-8-javascript-and-you/

v1.0.0

This version was based on the work by good folks at the MDN, however, the UTF-8 conversion was not byte-compatible with other UTF-8 conversions (such as node.js and TextEncoder), so don't use it. See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WindowBase64/Base64_encoding_and_decoding