# How to parse variable sized integer from metadata log **URL:** \ **Category:** Challenges\ **Tags:** challenge:kafka\ **Created:** [January 17, 2025, 3:12pm UTC](https://forum.codecrafters.io/t/how-to-parse-variable-sized-integer-from-metadata-log/4254 "2025-01-17T15:12:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 5
**Author:** ![andy1li](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex003/user_avatar/forum.codecrafters.io/andy1li/32/10_2.png) [@andy1li](https://forum.codecrafters.io/u/andy1li)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2025, 2:48pm UTC](https://forum.codecrafters.io/t/how-to-parse-variable-sized-integer-from-metadata-log/4254/5 "2025-01-21T14:48:12Z")
It’s the Calculator app on mac in programmer mode: ![image](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex003/uploads/codecrafters/original/2X/7/76fbd0e5f88d40b60888f3a24421853a60aec703.jpeg) * * * You’re absolutely right! It’s 257. I was a bit confused as well, because the length of `Value (Partition Record)` is apparently 65 (= 1 + 16 x 4): ![image](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex003/uploads/codecrafters/original/2X/a/a6fd2f4fa8656609cd1056fd3de97946d3b4d24a.png) Turns out that VARINT in Kafka involves two additional considerations: 1. [Small/Big-endian order](https://protobuf.dev/programming-guides/encoding/#varints) 2. [Zig-zag encoding](https://protobuf.dev/programming-guides/encoding/#signed-ints) ```auto 000 0010 + 000 0001 reverses order due to endianness: 000 0001 + 000 0010 = 1 000 0010 = 130 ``` 130 becomes 130 / 2 = 65 due to zig-zag encoding. --- _[View the full topic](https://forum.codecrafters.io/t/how-to-parse-variable-sized-integer-from-metadata-log/4254)._