Class: Snowflake

A class for generating and deconstructing Twitter snowflakes.

A Twitter snowflake is a 64-bit unsigned integer with 4 fields that have a fixed epoch value.

If we have a snowflake 266241948824764416 we can represent it as binary:

64                                          22     17     12          0
 000000111011000111100001101001000101000000  00001  00000  000000000000
          number of ms since epoch           worker  pid    increment

Constructors

new Snowflake()

new Snowflake(epoch: number | bigint | Date): Snowflake

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
epoch	number | bigint | Date	the epoch to use

Returns

Snowflake

Defined in

Snowflake.ts:77

Properties

[EpochNumberSymbol]

private readonly [EpochNumberSymbol]: number

Internal

Internal reference of the epoch passed in the constructor as a number

Defined in

Snowflake.ts:54

---

[EpochSymbol]

private readonly [EpochSymbol]: bigint

Internal

Internal reference of the epoch passed in the constructor

Defined in

Snowflake.ts:48

---

[IncrementSymbol]

private [IncrementSymbol]: bigint = 0n

Internal

Internal incrementor for generating snowflakes

Defined in

Snowflake.ts:60

---

[ProcessIdSymbol]

private [ProcessIdSymbol]: bigint = 1n

Internal

The process ID that will be used by default in the generate method

Defined in

Snowflake.ts:66

---

[WorkerIdSymbol]

private [WorkerIdSymbol]: bigint = 0n

Internal

The worker ID that will be used by default in the generate method

Defined in

Snowflake.ts:72

---

decode()

decode: (id: string | bigint) => DeconstructedSnowflake

Alias for deconstruct

Deconstructs a snowflake given a snowflake ID

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
id	string | bigint	the snowflake to deconstruct

Returns

DeconstructedSnowflake

a deconstructed snowflake

Example

const epoch = new Date('2000-01-01T00:00:00.000Z');
const snowflake = new Snowflake(epoch).deconstruct('3971046231244935168');

Defined in

Snowflake.ts:42

Accessors

epoch

Get Signature

get epoch(): bigint

The epoch for this snowflake, as a bigint

Returns

bigint

Defined in

Snowflake.ts:85

---

epochNumber

Get Signature

get epochNumber(): number

The epoch for this snowflake, as a number

Returns

number

Defined in

Snowflake.ts:92

---

processId

Get Signature

get processId(): bigint

Gets the configured process ID

Returns

bigint

Set Signature

set processId(value: number | bigint): void

Sets the process ID that will be used by default for the generate method

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
value	number | bigint	The new value, will be coerced to BigInt and masked with 0b11111n

Returns

void

Defined in

Snowflake.ts:99

---

workerId

Get Signature

get workerId(): bigint

Gets the configured worker ID

Returns

bigint

Set Signature

set workerId(value: number | bigint): void

Sets the worker ID that will be used by default for the generate method

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
value	number | bigint	The new value, will be coerced to BigInt and masked with 0b11111n

Returns

void

Defined in

Snowflake.ts:114

Methods

deconstruct()

deconstruct(id: string | bigint): DeconstructedSnowflake

Deconstructs a snowflake given a snowflake ID

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
id	string | bigint	the snowflake to deconstruct

Returns

DeconstructedSnowflake

a deconstructed snowflake

Example

const epoch = new Date('2000-01-01T00:00:00.000Z');
const snowflake = new Snowflake(epoch).deconstruct('3971046231244935168');

Defined in

Snowflake.ts:174

---

generate()

generate(options: SnowflakeGenerateOptions): bigint

Generates a snowflake given an epoch and optionally a timestamp

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
options	SnowflakeGenerateOptions	options to pass into the generator, see SnowflakeGenerateOptions note when increment is not provided it defaults to the private increment of the instance

Returns

bigint

A unique snowflake

Example

const epoch = new Date('2000-01-01T00:00:00.000Z');
const snowflake = new Snowflake(epoch).generate();

Defined in

Snowflake.ts:138

---

timestampFrom()

timestampFrom(id: string | bigint): number

Retrieves the timestamp field's value from a snowflake.

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
id	string | bigint	The snowflake to get the timestamp value from.

Returns

number

The UNIX timestamp that is stored in id.

Defined in

Snowflake.ts:192

---

compare()

static compare(a: string | bigint, b: string | bigint): -1 | 0 | 1

Returns a number indicating whether a reference snowflake comes before, or after, or is same as the given snowflake in sort order.

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
a	string | bigint	The first snowflake to compare.
b	string | bigint	The second snowflake to compare.

Returns

-1 | 0 | 1

-1 if a is older than b, 0 if a and b are equals, 1 if a is newer than b.

Examples

const ids = ['737141877803057244', '1056191128120082432', '254360814063058944'];
console.log(ids.sort((a, b) => Snowflake.compare(a, b)));
// → ['254360814063058944', '737141877803057244', '1056191128120082432'];

const ids = ['737141877803057244', '1056191128120082432', '254360814063058944'];
console.log(ids.sort((a, b) => -Snowflake.compare(a, b)));
// → ['1056191128120082432', '737141877803057244', '254360814063058944'];

Defined in

Snowflake.ts:215