NodeJS: Asynchronous file read problems - node.js

New to NodeJS.
Yes I know I could use a framework, but I want to get a good grok on it before delving into the myriad of fine fine tools that are out there.
my problem:
var img = fs.readFileSync(path);
the above works;
fs.readFile(path, function (err, data)
{
if (err) throw err;
console.log(data);
});
the above doesn't work;
the input path is : 'C:\NodeSite\chrome.jpg'
oh and working on Windows 7.
any help would be much appreciated.
Fixed
Late night/morning programming, introduces errors that are hard to spot. The path was being set from two different places, and so the source path were different in both cases. Thankyou for your help. I am a complete numpty. :)

If you are not setting an encoding when reading a file, you will get the binary content.
So for example, the following snippet will output the content of the test file using UTF-8 encoding. If you don't use an encoding, you will get an output like "" on your console (raw binary buffer).
var fs = require('fs');
var path = "C:\\tmp\\testfile.txt";
fs.readFile(path, 'utf8', function (err, data) {
if (err) throw err;
console.log(data);
});
Another issue (especially on windows-based OS's) can be the correct escaping of the target path. The above example shows how path's on Windows have to be escaped.

java guys will just use this javascript asynchronous command as if in pure java , troublefreely :
var fs = require('fs');
var Contenu = fs.readFileSync( fILE_FULL_Name , 'utf8');
console.log( Contenu );
That should take care of small & big files.

Related

Copying a pdf using node's fs results in a different file

I have the following code, which I expect to copy a pdf but it doesn't copy it exactly and the file size is off between 286KB vs the original 202KB and the copy does not open in a pdf reader. I tried this on other languages and I get the same issue. I get a similar if not identical result from opening the original pdf as a text file on vs code, copying and pasting the contents into a new file. Thank you!
const fs = require('fs');
fs.readFile('./original.pdf', 'utf8', (err, data) => {
fs.writeFile('./copy.pdf', chunk, err => {
console.error(err);
});
});
EDIT: To clarify, I'm not looking for another approach/library/api, but rather an explanation of why my method does not work and a modification of either the code or the copying and pasting the contents approach. Thank you!
You can use copyFile method from fs/promises:
import { copyFile } from 'fs/promises';
await copyFile('./original.pdf', './copy.pdf');
You can read more about it here.
const fs = require('fs');
fs.readFile('./original.pdf', (err, data) => {
fs.writeFile('./copy.pdf', data, err => {
console.error(err);
});
});
simply delete the encoding from the readFile-function and use the variable 'data' from the callback in the writeFile-function

Redirect Readable object stdout process to file in node

I use an NPM library to parse markdown to HTML like this:
var Markdown = require('markdown-to-html').Markdown;
var md = new Markdown();
...
md.render('./test', opts, function(err) {
md.pipe(process.stdout)
});
This outputs the result to my terminal as intended.
However, I need the result inside the execution of my node program. I thought about writing the output stream to file and then reading it in at a later time but I can't figure out a way to write the output to a file instead.
I tried to play around var file = fs.createWriteStream('./test.html'); but the node.js streams rather give me headaches than results.
I've also looked into the library's repo and Markdown inherits from Readable via util like this:
var util = require('util');
var Readable = require('stream').Readable;
util.inherits(Markdown, Readable);
Any resources or advice would be highly appreciated. (I would also take another library for parsing the markdown, but this gave me the best results so far)
Actually creating a writable file-stream and piping the markdown to this stream should work just fine. Try it with:
const writeStream = fs.createWriteStream('./output.html');
md.render('./test', opts, function(err) {
md.pipe(writeStream)
});
// in case of errors you should handle them
writeStream.on('error', function (err) {
console.log(err);
});

Can't find the file I created by fs.writeFile

I am trying to write a file in node.js using fs.writeFile, I use the following code:
const fs = require('filer');
const jsonString = JSON.stringify(myObj)
fs.writeFile('/myFile.txt', jsonString, function (err) {
if (err) throw err;
console.log('Saved!');
});
}
I am sure the file is created, because I can read it by fs.readFile referring to the same address, but I cannot find it on the disk by using windows search. What I understood, if I change the localhost port it saves the files in another location. I already tried "process.cwd()", but it didn't work.
I really appreciate it if someone could help.
try to use : __dirname instead of process.cwd()
const fs = require('fs');
const path = require('path');
const filePath = path.join(__dirname, '/myFile.txt');
console.log(filePath);
const jsonString = JSON.stringify({ name: "kalo" })
fs.writeFile(filePath, jsonString, (err) => {
if (err) throw err;
console.log('The file has been saved!');
});
And I would like to know why are you using 'filer' instead of default fs module?
fs module is native module that provides file handling in node js. so you don't need to install it specifically. This code perfectly worked and it prints absolute location of the file as well.Just run this code if it doesn't work, I think you should re install node js. I have updated the answer.You can also use fs.writeFileSync method as well.
From documentation: "String form paths are interpreted as UTF-8 character sequences identifying the absolute or relative filename. Relative paths will be resolved relative to the current working directory as determined by calling process.cwd()."
So in order to determine your working directory (i.e. where fs create files by default) call (works for me):
console.log(process.cwd());
Then if you would like to change your working directory, you can call (works for me as well):
process.chdir('path_to_new_directory');
Path can be relative or absolute.
This is also from documentation: "The process.chdir() method changes the current working directory of the Node.js process or throws an exception if doing so fails (for instance, if the specified directory does not exist)."

Node writeFileSync encoding options for images

I'm using fs.writeFileSync(file, data[, options]) to save a file returned from http.get(options[, callback])
This works fine for text files but images, pdfs etc end up being corrupted. From the searching around that I've done, it's apparently because fs.writeFileSync(file, data[, options]) defaults to UTF-8
I've tried setting the encoding to 'binary', the mime-type and the extension to no avail. It feels like something really obvious that I'm overlooking, can anyone point me in the right direction?
Thank you in advance
Update
I'm running this through electron. I didn't think it was worth mentioning as electron is just running node, but I'm not a node or electron expert so I'm not sure
Create a Buffer from the image data and set its encoding to binary. Then pass that data into a stream.PassThrough and pipe that into a stream.Writable.
var fs = require('fs');
var stream = require('stream');
var imgStream = new stream.PassThrough();
imgStream.end(Buffer.from(data, 'binary'));
var wStream = fs.createWriteStream('./<dest>.<ext>');
imgStream.once('end', () => {
console.log('Image Written');
});
imgStream.once('error', (err) => {
console.log(err);
});
imgStream.pipe(wStream);

what does the filename option do in stylus.render function?

I have tried to change the filename parameter as per the sample codes (from official documentation) given below but it does not have any impact on my output.
I would expect that the filename would specify the path to either input or the output. However str is the input and needs to be defined and no output file gets generated based on the filename parameter.
So what does the filename option do in stylus.render function ?
Sample code from
var css = require('../')
, str = require('fs').readFileSync(__dirname + '/basic.styl', 'utf8');
css.render(str, { filename: 'basic.styl' }, function(err, css){
if (err) throw err;
console.log(css);
});
Sample code from
var stylus = require('stylus');
stylus.render(str, { filename: 'nesting.css' }, function(err, css){
if (err) throw err;
console.log(css);
});
The filename parameter is used in error reporting, not as an input or output filename.
From the docs at http://learnboost.github.io/stylus/docs/js.html:
Simply require the module, and call render() with the given string of Stylus code, and (optional) options object.
Frameworks utilizing Stylus should pass the filename option to provide better error reporting.

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