What is Punycode in Node.js?

Punycode is a way to represent Unicode (non-ASCII) characters using only ASCII characters, which is particularly important in the context of domain names and URLs. This encoding method allows internationalized domain names (IDNs) containing non-ASCII characters (e.g., Chinese, Arabic, or emojis) to be converted into a format that can be understood by the Domain Name System (DNS), which only supports ASCII characters.

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In Node.js, the punycode module provides utilities for encoding and decoding strings in Punycode.

How Does Punycode Work?

• Example: The domain name “münich.com” (with a Unicode character ü) is converted into the ASCII-compatible format "xn--mnich-kva.com" using Punycode.
• It uses the xn-- prefix to indicate that the domain is encoded in Punycode.

Punycode in Node.js

Note:

The punycode module was originally a core module in Node.js but has been deprecated as of Node.js v7.0.0. However, it can still be used by installing it as an external package via npm:

npm install punycode

If you’re using Node.js versions prior to v7.0.0, you can access it without…