Treat ArrayBuffer as Unsigned 8bit Integer Array in JavaScript

We have an ArrayBuffer with 8 bytes.

const a = new ArrayBuffer(8);

If we print a now using node.js, this is what we see in console.

ArrayBuffer {
  [Uint8Contents]: <00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00>,
  byteLength: 8
}

00 is the default value assigned.

If we want to treat the zeros or the binary numbers stored in the array buffer as 8 bit integers, we need to use Uint8Array.

const num8array = new Uint8Array(a);

Now we can treat num8array as an 8 bit integer array with contigous memory. Here is how we can play with the new array.

num8array[1] = 34;
console.log(num8array);

The output will be:

Uint8Array(8) [
  0, 34, 0, 0,
  0,  0, 0, 0
]