How to efficiently read bits out of bytes?

Question

I\'m working on a project that includes WebSockets, and data between the server (Node.js) and the client (Chrome) is sent using a custom (very simple) format for data exchan

Answer 1

function byte2bits(a)
{
    var tmp = "";
    for(var i = 128; i >= 1; i /= 2)
        tmp += a&i?'1':'0';
    return tmp;
}
function split2Bits(a, n)
{
    var buff = "";
    var b = [];
    for(var i = 0; i < a.length; i++)
    {
        buff += byte2bits(a[i]);
        while(buff.length >= n)
        {
            b.push(buff.substr(0, n));
            buff = buff.substr(n);
        }
    }
    return [b, buff];
}
var a, b, r;
a = [227, 142];
[b, r] = split2Bits(a, 3);
//b = ["111", "000", "111", "000", "111"];
//r = '0'; //rest of bits