Read/Write bytes of float in JS

Question

Is there any way I can read bytes of a float value in JS? What I need is to write a raw FLOAT or DOUBLE value into some binary format I need to make, so is there any way to get a byte-by-byte IEEE 754 representation? And same question for writing of course.

Answer 1

You can do it with typed arrays:

var buffer = new ArrayBuffer(4); var intView = new Int32Array(buffer); var floatView = new Float32Array(buffer);  floatView[0] = Math.PI console.log(intView[0].toString(2)); //bits of the 32 bit float 

Or another way:

var view = new DataView(new ArrayBuffer(4)); view.setFloat32(0, Math.PI); console.log(view.getInt32(0).toString(2)); //bits of the 32 bit float 

Not sure what browser support is like though