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expo-blob provides a web standards-compliant Blob implementation for React Native that offers superior performance and works consistently across all platforms. It is more reliable compared to the implementation exported from react-native, unlike Blob from react-native, which has limitations with the slice() method and other Web API features.

Installation

If you are installing this in an existing React Native app, make sure to install expo in your project.

Usage

Basic blob creation

import { Blob } from 'expo-blob';

// Create an empty blob
const emptyBlob = new Blob();

// Create a blob from text
const textBlob = new Blob(['Hello, World!'], { type: 'text/plain' });

// Create a blob from binary data
const binaryBlob = new Blob([new Uint8Array([1, 2, 3, 4])], {
  type: 'application/octet-stream',
});

// Create a blob from mixed content
const mixedBlob = new Blob(
  [
    'Text content',
    new Uint8Array([65, 66, 67]), // ABC in ASCII
    'More text',
  ],
  { type: 'text/plain' }
);

Blob properties

const blob = new Blob(['Hello, World!'], { type: 'text/plain' });

console.log(blob.size); // 13 (bytes)
console.log(blob.type); // "text/plain"

Reading blob content

const blob = new Blob(['Hello, World!'], { type: 'text/plain' });

// Read as text
const text = await blob.text();
console.log(text); // "Hello, World!"

// Read as bytes
const bytes = await blob.bytes();
console.log(bytes); // Uint8Array(13) [72, 101, 108, 108, 111, 44, 32, 87, 111, 114, 108, 100, 33]

// Read as ArrayBuffer
const arrayBuffer = await blob.arrayBuffer();
console.log(arrayBuffer); // ArrayBuffer(13)

Slicing blobs

const blob = new Blob(['Hello, World!'], { type: 'text/plain' });

// Slice from position 0 to 5
const slice1 = blob.slice(0, 5);
console.log(await slice1.text()); // "Hello"

// Slice from position 7 to end
const slice2 = blob.slice(7);
console.log(await slice2.text()); // "World!"

// Slice with custom type
const slice3 = blob.slice(0, 5, 'text/html');
console.log(slice3.type); // "text/html"

Streaming

const blob = new Blob(['Large content...'], { type: 'text/plain' });

// Create a readable stream
const stream = blob.stream();
const reader = stream.getReader();

// Read chunks
while (true) {
  const { done, value } = await reader.read();
  if (done) break;
  console.log('Chunk:', value);
}

API

Classes

Types