To help you get started, we've collected the most common ways that bencode is being used within popular public projects.

Sheraff / tvshows-alfred-workflow / node_modules / peerflix / node_modules / torrent-stream / node_modules / bittorrent-tracker / server.js View on Github

function error (message) {
    debug('sent error %s', message)
    res.end(bencode.encode({
      'failure reason': message
    }))

    // even though it's an error for the client, it's just a warning for the server.
    // don't crash the server because a client sent bad data :)
    self.emit('warning', new Error(message))
  }
}

View more ways to use bencode

Bencode

A node library for encoding and decoding bencoded data, according to the BitTorrent specification.

Index

• About BEncoding
• Installation
• Usage
• API

About BEncoding

from Wikipedia:

Bencode (pronounced like B encode) is the encoding used by the peer-to-peer file sharing system BitTorrent for storing and transmitting loosely structured data.

It supports four different types of values:

• byte strings
• integers
• lists
• dictionaries

Bencoding is most commonly used in torrent files. These metadata files are simply bencoded dictionaries.

Install with npm

npm install bencode

Usage

import bencode from 'bencode'

You can also use node-bencode with browserify to be able to use it in a lot of modern browsers.

Encoding

var data = {
  string: 'Hello World',
  integer: 12345,
  dict: {
    key: 'This is a string within a dictionary'
  },
  list: [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 'string', 5, {} ]
}

var result = bencode.encode( data )

NOTE As of bencode@0.8.0, boolean values will be cast to integers (false -> 0, true -> 1).

Output

d4:dictd3:key36:This is a string within a dictionarye7:integeri12345e4:listli1ei2ei3ei4e6:stringi5edee6:string11:Hello Worlde

Decoding

var data = Buffer.from('d6:string11:Hello World7:integeri12345e4:dictd3:key36:This is a string within a dictionarye4:listli1ei2ei3ei4e6:stringi5edeee')
var result = bencode.decode( data )

Output

{
  string: ,
  integer: 12345,
  dict: {
    key: 
  },
  list: [ 1, 2, 3, 4, , 5, {} ]
}

Automagically convert bytestrings to strings:

var result = bencode.decode( data, 'utf8' )

Output

{
  string: 'Hello World',
  integer: 12345,
  dict: {
    key: 'This is a string within a dictionary'
  },
  list: [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 'string', 5, {} ]
}

API

The API is compatible with the abstract-encoding specification.

bencode.encode( data, [buffer], [offset] )

> Buffer | Array | String | Object | Number | Boolean data > Buffer buffer > Number offset

Returns Buffer

bencode.decode( data, [start], [end], [encoding] )

> Buffer data > Number start > Number end > String encoding

If encoding is set, bytestrings are automatically converted to strings.

Returns Object | Array | Buffer | String | Number

bencode.byteLength( value ) or bencode.encodingLength( value )

> Buffer | Array | String | Object | Number | Boolean value