Node Buffers, from utf8 to binary

Question

I\'m receiving data as utf8 from a source and this data was originally in binary form (it was a Buffer). I have to convert back this data to a

Answer 1

You cannot expect binary data converted to utf8 and back again to be the same as the original binary data because of the way utf8 works (especially when invalid utf8 characters are replaced with \ufffd).

You have to use another format that correctly preserves the data. This could be 'hex', 'base64', 'binary', or some other binary-safe format provided by a third-party module. Obviously you should probably keep it as a Buffer if you can.