index.md

title	short-title	slug	page-type	browser-compat
TextDecoder: decode() method	decode()	Web/API/TextDecoder/decode	web-api-instance-method	api.TextDecoder.decode

{{APIRef("Encoding API")}}

The TextDecoder.decode() method returns a string containing text decoded from the buffer passed as a parameter.

The decoding method is defined in the current {{domxref("TextDecoder")}} object. This includes the expected encoding of the data, and how decoding errors are handled.

Syntax

decode()
decode(buffer)
decode(buffer, options)

Parameters

• buffer {{Optional_Inline}}

  • : An ArrayBuffer, a {{jsxref("TypedArray")}}, or a {{jsxref("DataView")}} object containing the encoded text to decode.

• options {{Optional_Inline}}

  • : An object with the property:

    • stream
      • : A boolean flag indicating whether additional data will follow in subsequent calls to decode(). Set to true if processing the data in chunks, and false for the final chunk or if the data is not chunked. It defaults to false.

Exceptions

• {{jsxref("TypeError")}}
  • : Thrown if there is a decoding error when the property {{DOMxRef("TextDecoder.fatal")}} is true.

Return value

A string.

Examples

This example encodes and decodes the euro symbol, €.

HTML

<p>Encoded value: <span id="encoded-value"></span></p>
<p>Decoded value: <span id="decoded-value"></span></p>

JavaScript

const encoder = new TextEncoder();
const array = encoder.encode("€"); // Uint8Array(3) [226, 130, 172]
document.getElementById("encoded-value").textContent = array;

const decoder = new TextDecoder();
const str = decoder.decode(array); // String "€"
document.getElementById("decoded-value").textContent = str;

Result

{{EmbedLiveSample("Examples")}}

Specifications

{{Specifications}}

Browser compatibility

{{Compat}}

See also

• The {{DOMxRef("TextDecoder")}} interface it belongs to.