Variable Length Quantity

Variable Length Quantities represent a set of arbitrarily sized unsigned integers.

A VLQ takes less space for generally "smaller" numbers, so it can allow you to save on space if you don't know the size of a number ahead of time. There is an optional max_bytes parameter to limit the number of bytes it can occupy, defaulting to 7.

function light.datatypes.vlq

function vlq(
    max_bytes: number?
): Datatype<number>

Returns a variable length number Datatype.

You can use this table to guage how large of a VLQ you should use, or to find out how many bytes a given integer is going to occupy.

Size Index

max_bytes	Size	Maximum Int	Minimum Int
vlq(1)	1 byte	(128^1)-1 (127)	0
vlq(2)	1-2 byte(s)	(128^2)-1 (16,383)	0
vlq(3)	1-3 byte(s)	(128^3)-1 (2,097,151)	0
vlq(4)	1-4 byte(s)	(128^4)-1 (268,435,455)	0
vlq(5)	1-5 byte(s)	(128^5)-1 (34,359,738,367)	0
vlq(6)	1-6 byte(s)	(128^6)-1 (4,398,046,511,103)	0
vlq(7)	1-7 byte(s)	(128^7)-1 (562,949,953,421,311)	0
vlq(8)	1-8 byte(s)	(128^8)-1 (72,057,594,037,927,935)	0