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Version: v0.0.3

Typed values & VR decode

ds.get(tag) returns an Element: the raw bytes and the VR. Its .value getter lazily decodes those bytes into a typed, discriminated DicomValue and caches the result. Every one of the 34 VRs has a decode: integers and floats (numbers), 64-bit values (bigints), attribute tags, person names (personName), strings (strings), free text (text), numeric strings (DS/IS), temporal values (dates / times / dateTimes), sequences, and raw binary for bulk data.

The DicomValue union​

DicomValue is a discriminated union. Switch on .kind and the payload narrows:

import { parseDicom } from "@cosyte/dicom";

const buf = Buffer.from(
  "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",
  "base64",
);

const ds = parseDicom(buf);

// US (unsigned short) → numbers. Switch on `.kind` to narrow the payload.
const rows = ds.get("00280010")?.value; // Rows
rows?.kind; // => "numbers"
const rowCount = rows?.kind === "numbers" ? rows.values[0] : undefined;
rowCount; // => 512

// PN (person name) → structured 3-group / 5-component value
const name = ds.get("00100010")?.value; // Patient's Name
name?.kind; // => "personName"
const family = name?.kind === "personName" ? name.values[0]?.alphabetic?.familyName : undefined;
family; // => "Doe"

// DA (date) → validated calendar parts, raw preserved
const date = ds.get("00080020")?.value; // Study Date
const day = date?.kind === "dates" ? date.values[0] : undefined;
day?.valid; // => true
day?.year; // => 2024

// IS (integer string) → parsed integers
const num = ds.get("00200011")?.value; // Series Number
num?.kind; // => "integerString"

Decode is fail-safe: a bad token is null, never a plausible wrong number​

The decode never throws and never coerces a malformed value into a plausible-but-wrong one. A bad DS/IS token becomes null (never NaN→0); an out-of-range date part is flagged rather than silently wrapped. Per-value deviations surface on the returned value's own warnings, so a mis-encoded token in one element never poisons the rest of the parse. This is the value-layer form of the "correct, not merely green" rule: the parser would rather tell you a token is unreadable than hand you a confident wrong one.

Character sets​

String VRs honor the object's (0008,0005) Specific Character Set: UTF-8 (ISO_IR 192), the ISO-8859 family, and ISO-2022 escapes. The active charset is threaded through nested sequence items so a code-string inside a sequence decodes the same way a top-level one does. An unsupported charset term degrades to a DICOM_UNSUPPORTED_CHARSET warning with a safe fallback, never a wrong decode.

Bulk data stays raw​

Pixel Data and other bulk elements decode to { kind: "binary", bytes }: the raw Buffer, never interpreted. This is the metadata-first boundary in the value layer: the bytes are handed to you exactly as stored (for encapsulated transfer syntaxes, as their fragments), and pixel decoding is out of scope. See Reading raw pixel data and the non-goals in Troubleshooting.