Detect non-printable characters in JavaScript

javascript binary ascii hex non-printable
deepwell picture deepwell · Nov 5, 2009 · Viewed 15.6k times · Source

Is it possible to detect binary data in JavaScript?

I'd like to be able to detect binary data and convert it to hex for easier readability/debugging.

After more investigation I've realized that detecting binary data is not the right question, because binary data can contain regular characters, and non-printable characters.

Outis's question and answer (/[\x00-\x1F]/) is really the best we can do in an attempt to detect binary characters.

Note: You must remove line feeds and possibly other characters from your ascii string sequence for the check to actually work.

Answer

outis picture outis · Nov 5, 2009

If by "binary", you mean "contains non-printable characters", try:

/[\x00-\x1F]/.test(data)

If whitespace is considered non-binary data, try:

/[\x00-\x08\x0E-\x1F]/.test(data)

If you know the string is either ASCII or binary, use:

/[\x00-\x1F\x80-\xFF]/.test(data)

or:

/[\x00-\x08\x0E-\x1F\x80-\xFF]/.test(data)

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