---
alias: user-guide-automation-converter-buffertovalue
description: "This component converts a buffer into various data types for processing"
---

# Buffer to Value

It transforms a Buffer object into a different type. The available types are Integer, StringUTF8, StringASCII, StringUTF16LE, StringBase64. It uses the .toString() and the .readIntBE() javascript function.

## Settings

| Name      | Data Type |    Possible Values    |    Description    |
|---------- | ----------- | ----------- | ----------- |
| type     | `Enum` | `StringASCII`<br />`StringUTF8`<br />`StringUTF16LE`<br />`StringBase64`<br />`StringHex`<br />`Integer`<br />`UnsignedInteger`<br />`Float`<br />`Double` | Formatter to use to convert the value |

Table 1: Settings

![image123][image123]

[image123]: ./images/image123.png

## Examples

| Input buffer (hex / encoding)                   | `type`            | Output         |
| ----------------------------------------------- | ----------------- | -------------- |
| `00 00 00 01`                                   | `Integer`         | `1`            |
| `00 00 00 7F`                                   | `UnsignedInteger` | `127`          |
| `12 34 56 78`                                   | `StringHex`       | `12345678`     |
| UTF-8 bytes of `"Hello"`                        | `StringUTF8`      | `Hello`        |
| ASCII bytes of `"Hello"`                        | `StringASCII`     | `Hello`        |
| UTF-16 LE bytes of `"Hello"`                    | `StringUTF16LE`   | `Hello`        |
| Base64-decoded bytes of `"abcdefg12345"`        | `StringBase64`    | `abcdefg12345` |
| 4-byte buffer written with `writeFloatBE(3.14)` | `Float`           | `≈ 3.14`       |
| 8-byte buffer written with `writeDoubleBE(3.14159)` | `Double`      | `≈ 3.14159`    |

Table 2: Examples

### Invalid Configuration

This converter fails in the case below. It also fails when the input buffer is shorter than the selected `type`'s minimum size (see note at the end of this section). For what happens to the rest of the chain when a converter fails (the error is logged, reported for monitoring, and the next task does not run), see [[user-guide-automation-converters-index]].

| `type`            | Result                             |
| ----------------- | ---------------------------------- |
| `UnsupportedType` | Fails with `Not implemented yet.`  |

Table 3: Invalid Configuration

The conversion is size-sensitive: `Float` requires at least 4 bytes, `Double` at least 8 bytes. Providing a shorter buffer causes the converter to fail.