encoding-down
An
abstract-leveldown
implementation that wraps another store to encode keys and values.
Introduction
Stores like leveldown
can only store strings and Buffers. Other types, though accepted, are serialized before storage, which is an irreversible type conversion. For a richer set of data types you can wrap such a store with encoding-down
. It allows you to specify an encoding to use for keys and values independently. This not only widens the range of input types, but also limits the range of output types. The encoding is applied to all read and write operations: it encodes writes and decodes reads.
Many encodings are builtin courtesy of level-codec
. The default encoding is utf8
which ensures you'll always get back a string. You can also provide a custom encoding like bytewise
- or your own!
Usage
Without any options, encoding-down
defaults to the utf8
encoding.
const levelup = require('levelup')
const leveldown = require('leveldown')
const encode = require('encoding-down')
const db = levelup(encode(leveldown('./db1')))
db.put('example', Buffer.from('encoding-down'), function (err) {
db.get('example', function (err, value) {
console.log(typeof value, value) // 'string encoding-down'
})
})
Can we store objects? Yes!
const db = levelup(encode(leveldown('./db2'), { valueEncoding: 'json' }))
db.put('example', { awesome: true }, function (err) {
db.get('example', function (err, value) {
console.log(value) // { awesome: true }
console.log(typeof value) // 'object'
})
})
How about storing Buffers, but getting back a hex-encoded string?
const db = levelup(encode(leveldown('./db3'), { valueEncoding: 'hex' }))
db.put('example', Buffer.from([0, 255]), function (err) {
db.get('example', function (err, value) {
console.log(typeof value, value) // 'string 00ff'
})
})
What if we previously stored binary data?
const db = levelup(encode(leveldown('./db4'), { valueEncoding: 'binary' }))
db.put('example', Buffer.from([0, 255]), function (err) {
db.get('example', function (err, value) {
console.log(typeof value, value) // 'object <Buffer 00 ff>'
})
// Override the encoding for this operation
db.get('example', { valueEncoding: 'base64' }, function (err, value) {
console.log(typeof value, value) // 'string AP8='
})
})
And what about keys?
const db = levelup(encode(leveldown('./db5'), { keyEncoding: 'json' }))
db.put({ awesome: true }, 'example', function (err) {
db.get({ awesome: true }, function (err, value) {
console.log(value) // 'example'
})
})
const db = levelup(encode(leveldown('./db6'), { keyEncoding: 'binary' }))
db.put(Buffer.from([0, 255]), 'example', function (err) {
db.get('00ff', { keyEncoding: 'hex' }, function (err, value) {
console.log(value) // 'example'
})
})
level
Usage with The level
module conveniently bundles encoding-down
and passes its options
to encoding-down
. This means you can simply do:
const level = require('level')
const db = level('./db7', { valueEncoding: 'json' })
db.put('example', 42, function (err) {
db.get('example', function (err, value) {
console.log(value) // 42
console.log(typeof value) // 'number'
})
})
API
db = require('encoding-down')(db[, options])
-
db
must be anabstract-leveldown
compliant store -
options
are passed tolevel-codec
:-
keyEncoding
: encoding to use for keys -
valueEncoding
: encoding to use for values
-
Both encodings default to 'utf8'
. They can be a string (builtin level-codec
encoding) or an object (custom encoding).
Custom encodings
Please refer to level-codec
documentation for a precise description of the format. Here's a quick example with level
and async/await
just for fun:
const level = require('level')
const lexint = require('lexicographic-integer')
async function main () {
const db = level('./db8', {
keyEncoding: {
type: 'lexicographic-integer',
encode: (n) => lexint.pack(n, 'hex'),
decode: lexint.unpack,
buffer: false
}
})
await db.put(2, 'example')
await db.put(10, 'example')
// Without our encoding, the keys would sort as 10, 2.
db.createKeyStream().on('data', console.log) // 2, 10
}
main()
With an npm-installed encoding (modularity ftw!) we can reduce the above to:
const level = require('level')
const lexint = require('lexicographic-integer-encoding')('hex')
const db = level('./db8', {
keyEncoding: lexint
})
Contributing
Level/encoding-down
is an OPEN Open Source Project. This means that:
Individuals making significant and valuable contributions are given commit-access to the project to contribute as they see fit. This project is more like an open wiki than a standard guarded open source project.
See the Contribution Guide for more details.
Donate
Support us with a monthly donation on Open Collective and help us continue our work.