Node Roundup: bigint, mingy, kyoto-client, Blagovest's NPM Search
bigint
bigint by James Halliday is an arbitrary precision arithmetic library for Node. Large integers can be defined with strings, then manipulated with the library’s methods:
var bigint = require('bigint');
var b = bigint('782910138827292261791972728324982')
.sub('182373273283402171237474774728373')
.div(8);
Note that there’s also a destroy method:
Destroy a bigint. This module is using node-ffi so I can’t hook onto the GC easily. You only need to call this if you’re creating bigints in a loop.
Other methods include rand, pow, and more. This library can be installed with npm install bigint.
I actually have some experience in working with arbitrary precision arithmetic from back in my university days — I wrote a distributed fractal generator with various numerical libraries. In Ada… This sounds like a lot more fun!
Mingy
I like writing CLI stuff, so I thought Mingy by Mike Cantelon sounded pretty cool. He describes it as a “cheap and cheerful command parser/server for node.js”, perfect for creating command-line tools, text adventure games, and even MUDs.
It can run as a server (hence the MUD reference), copes with multiple users, includes validation support, and even has Expresso tests.
kyoto-client
kyoto-client (GitHub: wezm / kyoto-client, BSD License) by Wesley Moore is a Kyoto Tycoon client library. Kyoto Tycoon is a lightweight database server, from FAL Labs, who also created the older Tokyo Cabinet key value database.
The kyoto-client module has some good documentation on the site and seems straightforward to use. It can be installed with npm install kyoto-client.
Blagovest’s NPM Search
Blagovest’s NPM Search by Blagovest Dachev is a convenient (and fast) way to browse npm. In fact, it’s exactly the kind of thing I need to find things to write about for DailyJS. Thanks Blagovest!
