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doc: add documentation for buffer.byteOffset #21718

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25 changes: 25 additions & 0 deletions doc/api/buffer.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -992,6 +992,31 @@ console.log(buffer.buffer === arrayBuffer);
// Prints: true
```

### buf.byteOffset

* {integer} The `byteOffset` on the underlying `ArrayBuffer` object based on
which this `Buffer` object is created.

When setting `byteOffset` in `Buffer.from(ArrayBuffer, byteOffset, length)`
or sometimes when allocating a buffer smaller than `Buffer.poolSize` the
buffer doesn't start from a zero offset on the underlying `ArrayBuffer`.

This can cause problems when accessing the underlying `ArrayBuffer` directly
using `buf.buffer`, as the first bytes in this `ArrayBuffer` may be unrelated
to the `buf` object itself.

A common issue is when casting a `Buffer` object to a `TypedArray` object,
in this case one needs to specify the `byteOffset` correctly:

```js
// Create a buffer smaller than `Buffer.poolSize`.
const nodeBuffer = new Buffer.from([0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]);

// When casting the Node.js Buffer to an Int8 TypedArray remember to use the
// byteOffset.
new Int8Array(nodeBuffer.buffer, nodeBuffer.byteOffset, nodeBuffer.length);
```

### buf.compare(target[, targetStart[, targetEnd[, sourceStart[, sourceEnd]]]])
<!-- YAML
added: v0.11.13
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