JavaScript Numbers are represented as IEEE 754 double-precision floats. Unfortunately, this means they lose integer precision for values beyond +/- 2^^53. For projects that need to accurately handle 64-bit ints, such as node-thrift, a performant, Number-like class is needed. Int64 is that class.
Int64 instances look and feel much like JS-native Numbers. By way of example ...
// First, let's illustrate the problem ...> (0x123456789).toString(16)'123456789'// <- what we expect.> (0x123456789abcdef0).toString(16)'123456789abcdf00'// <- Ugh! JS doesn't do big ints. :(// So let's create a couple Int64s using the above values ...// Require, of course> Int64 =require('node-int64')// x's value is what we expect (the decimal value of 0x123456789)> x =newInt64(0x123456789)[Int64 value:4886718345 octets:0000000123456789]// y's value is Infinity because it's outside the range of integer// precision. But that's okay - it's still useful because it's internal// representation (octets) is what we passed in> y =newInt64('123456789abcdef0')[Int64 value:Infinity octets:12345678 9a bc de f0]// Let's do some math. Int64's behave like Numbers. (Sorry, Int64 isn't// for doing 64-bit integer arithmetic (yet) - it's just for carrying// around int64 values> x +14886718346> y +1Infinity// Int64 string operations ...>'value: '+ x'value: 4886718345'>'value: '+ y'value: Infinity'>x.toString(2)'100100011010001010110011110001001'>y.toString(2)'Infinity'// Use JS's isFinite() method to see if the Int64 value is in the// integer-precise range of JS values>isFinite(x)true>isFinite(y)false// Get an octet string representation. (Yay, y is what we put in!)>x.toOctetString()'0000000123456789'>y.toOctetString()'123456789abcdef0'// Finally, some other ways to create Int64s ...// Pass hi/lo words>newInt64(0x12345678,0x9abcdef0)[Int64 value:Infinity octets:12345678 9a bc de f0]// Pass a Buffer>newInt64(newBuffer([0x12,0x34,0x56,0x78,0x9a,0xbc,0xde,0xf0]))[Int64 value:Infinity octets:12345678 9a bc de f0]// Pass a Buffer and offset>newInt64(newBuffer([0,0,0,0,0x12,0x34,0x56,0x78,0x9a,0xbc,0xde,0xf0]),4)[Int64 value:Infinity octets:12345678 9a bc de f0]// Pull out into a buffer>newInt64(newBuffer([0x12,0x34,0x56,0x78,0x9a,0xbc,0xde,0xf0])).toBuffer()<Buffer 12 34 56 78 9a bcdef0>// Or copy into an existing one (at an offset)> var buf = new Buffer(1024);> new Int64(new Buffer([0x12, 0x34, 0x56, 0x78, 0x9a, 0xbc, 0xde, 0xf0])).copy(buf, 512);