What is inflateRaw() in Node.js?

The zlib module in Node.js provides compression and decompression functionality utilizing Gzip, Deflate/Inflate, and Brotli.

It can be accessed in your program with:

const zlib = require('zlib');

inflateRaw() is a function of the zlib module, which allows decompressing a stream of data.

Syntax

zlib.inflateRaw( buffer, options, callback )

Parameters

  • buffer is the data to be decompressed. It can be of any type, such as Buffer, TypedArray, DataView, ArrayBuffer, or string.

  • options is an optional argument used to provide options to the zlib classes.

  • callback is the call-back function that is executed.

Return value

The inflateRaw() method returns decompressed data.

Example

In the following example, we provide an input string to the deflateRaw() method, which compresses the input in line 8. Then we use the inflateRaw() method to recover the original input string.

We provide the compressed data buffer and the callback function as arguments to the inflateRaw() method.

// Including zlib module
const zlib = require("zlib");
//input declaration
var input = "Educative Inc.";
// Calling zlib.deflateRaw method to compress data
zlib.deflateRaw(input, (err, buffer) => {
console.log("Compressed data: ",buffer.toString('utf8'));
// Calling zlib.inflateRaw
zlib.inflateRaw(buffer, (err, buffer) => {
console.log("Decompressed data: ",buffer.toString('utf8'));
});
});

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