Guarantee that BufferReader#buf is a Buffer

[seishun]

I'm in the process of updating my encoder/decoder generator to match the API of protobuf.js 6.x (currently it mimics protobuf.js 4.x, you can see it here). The generated decode methods will take an object with properties buf and pos. buf will have to be a Buffer since the decoder will take advantage of Buffer's methods.

I also want to be able to pass the same data type to both my own decode and protobuf.js's decode. The latter accepts BufferReader, but the documentation for BufferReader says its buf is a Uint8Array, not Buffer, so it would be technically incompatible with my decode. But it's clear from the source code that it's actually a Buffer.

Can you update the documentation to state that BufferReader#buf is a Buffer and not just Uint8Array?

[dcodeIO]

The Uint8Array reference is used to simplify TypeScript usage (no need to override every single reader/writer function referencing Uint8Array that is inherited from the Uint8Array reader/writer), which is based on modern node version's Buffer inheriting from Uint8Array anyway.

Would it be enough if documentation would cover this textually, without changing the actual type to Buffer?

[seishun]

I'm not sure how that would look like, but sure, as long as the documentation makes it clear that it's a Buffer I'd be okay with that.

Could you clarify why overriding all the functions would be necessary though?

[dcodeIO]

Could you clarify why overriding all the functions would be necessary though?

Sorry, not all functions, just the ones referencing Uint8Array. Because documentation.

[seishun]

So just bytes()?

[dcodeIO]

That and #buf for BufferReader.

.alloc, #bytes, #finish and #buf for BufferWriter - and maybe all the Op stuff.

(thought it would be more)

Currently looking into this.

[seishun]

Seems reasonable to me, although I'm not sure what you mean by Op stuff.

I think it would be particularly useful to note that BufferWriter#finish returns a Buffer since that seems to be its primary difference from Writer.

Also BufferWriter#bytes doesn't need any doc change since it does actually accept Uint8Array, not only Buffer. And BufferWriter#buf doesn't exist.

[dcodeIO]

Updated, let me know if that solves your issue!

[seishun]

Yes, thanks for the quick response!