How convert a string to type Uint8Array in nodejs

Question

• How do I convert a string to a Uint8Array in node?
• I don't normally develop in Javascript and this is driving me nuts. They offer a conversion Uint8Array.toString() but not the other way around. Does anyone know of an easy way for me to do this without creating my own parser?
• I have seen some other answers to this, but they don't seem to address this specific class type

Answer 1

You can use Buffer.from(string[, encoding]). The Buffer class has implemented the Uint8Array interface in Node since v4.x. You can also optionally specify an encoding with which to do string processing in both directions, i.e. buffer.toString([encoding]).

Answer 2

Uint8Array.from(text.split('').map(letter => letter.charCodeAt(0)));

or (appears about 18% faster):

Uint8Array.from(Array.from(text).map(letter => letter.charCodeAt(0)));

Note: These only work for ASCII, so all the letters are modulo 256, so if you try with Russian text, it won't work.