ByteData class abstract final

A fixed-length, random-access sequence of bytes that also provides random and unaligned access to the fixed-width integers and floating point numbers represented by those bytes.

ByteData may be used to pack and unpack data from external sources (such as networks or files systems), and to process large quantities of numerical data more efficiently than would be possible with ordinary List implementations. ByteData can save space, by eliminating the need for object headers, and time, by eliminating the need for data copies.

If data comes in as bytes, they can be converted to ByteData by sharing the same buffer.

Uint8List bytes = ...;
var blob = ByteData.sublistView(bytes);
if (blob.getUint32(0, Endian.little) == 0x04034b50) { // Zip file marker
  ...
}

Finally, ByteData may be used to intentionally reinterpret the bytes representing one arithmetic type as another. For example this code fragment determine what 32-bit signed integer is represented by the bytes of a 32-bit floating point number (both stored as big endian):

var bdata = ByteData(8);
bdata.setFloat32(0, 3.04);
int huh = bdata.getInt32(0); // 0x40428f5c

It is a compile-time error for a class to attempt to extend or implement ByteData.