Reading file using Node.js "Invalid Encoding" Error - node.js

Question

I am creating an application with Node.js and I am trying to read a file called "datalog.txt." I use the "append" function to write to the file:
//Appends buffer data to a given file
function append(filename, buffer) {
let fd = fs.openSync(filename, 'a+');
fs.writeSync(fd, str2ab(buffer));
fs.closeSync(fd);
}
//Converts string to buffer
function str2ab(str) {
var buf = new ArrayBuffer(str.length*2); // 2 bytes for each char
var bufView = new Uint16Array(buf);
for (var i=0, strLen=str.length; i < strLen; i++) {
bufView[i] = str.charCodeAt(i);
}
return buf;
}
append("datalog.txt","12345");
This seems to work great. However, now I want to use fs.readFileSync to read from the file. I tried using this:
const data = fs.readFileSync('datalog.txt', 'utf16le');
I changed the encoding parameter to all of the encoding types listed in the Node documentation, but all of them resulted in this error:
TypeError: Argument at index 2 is invalid: Invalid encoding
All I want to be able to do is be able to read the data from "datalog.txt." Any help would be greatly appreciated!
NOTE: Once I can read the data of the file, I want to be able to get a list of all the lines of the file.

Answer 1

Encoding and type are an object:
const data = fs.readFileSync('datalog.txt', {encoding:'utf16le'});

Answer 2

Okay, after a few hours of troubleshooting a looking at the docs I figured out a way to do this.
try {
// get metadata on the file (we need the file size)
let fileData = fs.statSync("datalog.txt");
// create ArrayBuffer to hold the file contents
let dataBuffer = new ArrayBuffer(fileData["size"]);
// read the contents of the file into the ArrayBuffer
fs.readSync(fs.openSync("datalog.txt", 'r'), dataBuffer, 0, fileData["size"], 0);
// convert the ArrayBuffer into a string
let data = String.fromCharCode.apply(null, new Uint16Array(dataBuffer));
// split the contents into lines
let dataLines = data.split(/\r?\n/);
// print out each line
dataLines.forEach((line) => {
console.log(line);
});
} catch (err) {
console.error(err);
}
Hope it helps someone else with the same problem!

Answer 3

This works for me:
index.js
const fs = require('fs');
// Write
fs.writeFileSync('./customfile.txt', 'Content_For_Writing');
// Read
const file_content = fs.readFileSync('./customfile.txt', {encoding:'utf8'}).toString();
console.log(file_content);
node index.js
Output:
Content_For_Writing
Process finished with exit code 0