How to read a file in Node JS / Express JS Project? - node.js

In my Node JS / Express JS project, I need to get an excel project and I will be using this library read-excel-file.
I need to get the file path in order to continue with this code from the library documentation:
const readXlsxFile = require('read-excel-file/node');
// File path.
readXlsxFile('/path/to/file').then((rows) => {
// `rows` is an array of rows
// each row being an array of cells.
})
I don't understand about the file path, I can't get it from an <input type='file' /> I only get the file name.
but the location of the file is on the client device not on the server so how could this workout?

You CAN NOT access file on client file system from an HTTP server. You will need to send the file from client to server.
There's a lot of resource available online which can help with file upload but the gist is that file is send as a multipart-data from client to server. In Express server, multer module is used to access the file in req.file property.

Related

How to download a file from server in react?

I have a Node.js backend that sends an icon image to a React frontend. Initially, I encode this image as a Base64 string and store it directly in the database. I created an api that returns this string to the frontend. However, I read that it is bad to store it in the database, so I re-wrote the api to store this string in the server as a json file and now my api returns the absolute path to this json file. However, how is the React frontend supposed to retrieve the file? Is it possible to use the absolute path or do I have to create another api to return a file object ? If so, how do I do that?
I'm a newbie at both react and node.js so any help is appreciated.Thanks.
EDIT: I stored the file path as __dirname of where my code resides + filename.I'm getting cors error when accessing that url
Use Express to share out that folder as such-and-such.
Suppose you keep your files in a folder called files, just off the root. And suppose your server structure looks roughly like this:
- backend
- app.js
- frontend
- Components
- Routes
- public
- dev
- index.html (your template file)
- files
- myimage.png
In your root js file (app.js? server.js? index.js?):
const app = express()
app.use('/static', express.static('public'));
app.use('/files', express.static('public/files'));
Then, in the frontend code:
<img src='/files/myimage.png' />
By the way, there is no problem storing images as base64 in your database... but every database backup will also backup those images. If you have a small database, no worries. However, if you have a LOT of images, especially very large images, this will make your database (and backups) unnecessarily large and unwieldy.
Everything depends on your use case.

How to : Read file from API (node) in my React app?

I work on an webapp which use REACT JS (with NODE, port 3000) and an API (with NODE JS, port 3100).
All requests made by client passing throught my API.
In this app, client could be able to listen mp3s downloaded and stored into my API. I made different schemas but I don't know which one can work.
SCHEMA 1.
REACT send parameters to API
API download the file and store it on a temporary directory
API send the URL (like : http://localhost:3100/sound/exemple.mp3) to REACT
REACT use that URL in 'src' of the AudioPlayer
Temporary files are delete with a CRON setting up on API server
I tried that solution but I have an error when I want to play the sound
(error: Can't GET /URL)
SCHEMA 2.
REACT send parameters to API
API download the file and store it on a temporary directory
REACT download the file from API and store it into public directory (by using express static)
REACT use that URL in 'src' of the AudioPlayer
Delete the file twice (API and REACT)
Another solution is to download the file directly from my source on REACT. But I need to hide the URL of the source (that why I pass throught my API).
Maybe there are others solutions ?

How to upload multiple files in React-Redux

I had a query that I wanted to ask you about. I was building an application in React-Redux with Express NodeJS as backend, and postgreSQL as db. I wanted to implement a File Upload component into it. Can you please tell me how should I do that ?
Our team had previously implemented file upload in angular using multer on the backend. When we did the same in redux the small files get uploaded fine but when I try to upload a file over 4 mb it re-renders the page before the file is completely uploaded.
Please guide me how should I do this ? If you have a code sample that I can understand, that will also be great.
It is possible to upload multiple files at once in React.
<input type="file" multiple
name="myImage" accept=".png, .jpeg" className="multiple-upload"
onChange={this.uploadScreenshotFile} />
Here is uploadScreenshotFile function
uploadScreenshotFile(event){
for(let size=0; size < event.target.files.length; size++){
console.log('Selected file:', event.target.files[size]);
let file = event.target.files[size];
console.log("uploading screenshot file...");
// Do necessary request to upload here.......
}
}

Download Full Directory to Client Through URL Express JS

I am trying to send a directory full of files to the client. So far, I have been trying to use the Express JS helper function res.download(). However that is only working for single files. How can I send a full directory from my Node server to the client?
// works when path includes file inside /files
router.get('/points-stats-csv', function(req, res, next) {
var dir = '../public/files/'
res.download(dir, 'points-stats.csv')
})
You can't send a directory.
Directory is a file system structure, and the contents are index and locations on the disk of the files in that folder.
So, like written in the comments, you need to pack (zip) all the files pointed by that folders into a single file, and then send that single file.

How to receive a zip file in koa server

I'm implementing a webserver using Koa. One of my request handlers needs to receive and store a large zip file. The file is NOT uploaded from a web page, but sent from another NodeJs application. Therefore it's not multipart encoded, but just applcation/octet-stream. How can I read such a file from the request?
I've noticed there is a request.socket object but I could not find any documentation on how to use it.
In other words I need the opposite to
this.body = fs.createReadStream(path);

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