Bit Flag Utilities for Permission Sets

Represent up to 30 permissions as one 32-bit mask with helpers to build, test, add, remove, toggle and list enabled flags.

JavascriptSecurity Boundaries

Code

snippet
export function createFlagSet(names) {
  if (!Array.isArray(names) || names.length === 0) {
    throw new TypeError("names must be a non-empty array");
  }
  if (names.length > 30) throw new RangeError("at most 30 flags are supported");
  const bits = new Map();
  const all = [];
  for (const name of names) {
    if (typeof name !== "string" || name.trim() === "") {
      throw new TypeError("flag names must be non-empty strings");
    }
    const normalized = name.trim();
    if (bits.has(normalized)) throw new Error(`duplicate flag "${normalized}"`);
    bits.set(normalized, 1 << bits.size);
    all.push(normalized);
  }
  const resolve = (name) => {
    const bit = bits.get(name);
    if (bit === undefined) throw new Error(`unknown flag "${name}"`);
    return bit;
  };
  return {
    names: () => [...all],
    mask(...selected) {
      return selected.reduce((mask, name) => mask | resolve(name), 0);
    },
    has(mask, name) {
      return (mask & resolve(name)) !== 0;
    },
    add(mask, name) {
      return mask | resolve(name);
    },
    remove(mask, name) {
      return mask & ~resolve(name);
    },
    toggle(mask, name) {
      return mask ^ resolve(name);
    },
    toNames(mask) {
      return all.filter((name) => (mask & resolve(name)) !== 0);
    },
  };
}

const permissions = createFlagSet(["read", "write", "admin"]);
let mask = permissions.mask("read", "write");
console.log(mask, permissions.toNames(mask));
mask = permissions.remove(mask, "write");
mask = permissions.toggle(mask, "admin");
console.log(permissions.has(mask, "write"), permissions.toNames(mask));