Replace `Buffer` with `Uint8Array`

[letmaik]

Currently, this library cannot directly be used in non-Node environments (without Buffer polyfills). Are there any issues with switching to ArrayBuffer instead? Just wondering if such a contribution would be accepted.

[silverwind]

I think UInt8Array is the preferred Buffer replacement, see this. I would accept such a refactor.

[frankhinek]

@silverwind @mafintosh It seems like a fair bit of work was put into this fork: https://github.com/dnsquery/dns-packet
to switch to Uint8Array and add types.

What are the views of current maintainers for this approach? Is the preference to solely swap Buffer for Uint8Array or would a TypeScript refactor also be accepted?

[silverwind]

UInt8Array will be a breaking change, so I guess it might make sense to bundle a switch to TS with it. I'm not much of a TS aficionado, but I guess I should manage to review if you keep it simple.

[mafintosh]

you can switch it to use holepunchto/b4a, we use that for easy browser compat

[gillg]

Do you think the error buf.readUInt16BE is not a function could be related ?
I'm using TS on node 22.11, my DNS packet to decode is a string (what says typeof(packet)).
I tried to convert it as a Buffer via Buffer.from(packet) to decode it, but in that case I get Cannot decode name (bad label)

Does anyone see a workaround ?

Example of bufferized data if you want to check:
<Buffer 00 01 01 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 77 77 77 09 69 61 64 66 72 61 6e 63 65 02 66 72 00 00 01 00 01>

[kitten]

usually I don't comment about derivatives since it's a bit cheeky, but just wanted to note that in a derivative I'm maintining for Expo (which is for dnssd-advertise primarily), I've been using DataView, since it's widely available and a good fit for switching away from Buffer: https://github.com/kitten/dns-message

I believe, there used to be some performance cliffs and slow paths in DataView, but the situation seems much better these days than it used to