Read File

Reads the entire contents of a file.

Installation

$ npm install utils-fs-read-file

Usage

var readFile = require( 'utils-fs-read-file' );

readFile( path, [ options,] clbk )

Reads the entire contents of a file.

readFile( __filename, onFile );
 
function onFile( error, data ) {
    if ( error ) {
        console.error( error );
    } else {
        console.log( data );
    }
}

The function accepts the same options as fs.readFile().

readFile.sync( path[, options] )

Synchronously reads the contents of an entire file.

var out = readFile.sync( __filename );
if ( out instanceof Error ) {
    throw out;
}
console.log( out );

The function accepts the same options as fs.readFileSync().

Notes

• The difference between this module and fs.readFileSync() is that fs.readFileSync()will throw if an error is encountered (e.g., if given a non-existent path) and this module will return an error. Hence, the following anti-pattern

  var fs = require( 'fs' );
   
  var file = '/path/to/file.js';
   
  // Check for existence to prevent an error being thrown...
  if ( fs.existsSync( file ) ) {
      file = fs.readFileSync( file );
  }

  can be replaced by an approach which addresses existence via error handling.

  var readFile = require( 'utils-fs-read-file' );
   
  var file = '/path/to/file.js';
   
  // Explicitly handle the error...
  file = readFile.sync( file );
  if ( file instanceof Error ) {
      // You choose what to do...
      throw file;
  }

Examples

var readFile = require( 'utils-fs-read-file' );
 
// Sync:
var file = readFile.sync( __filename, 'utf8' );
// returns <string>
 
console.log( file instanceof Error );
// returns false
 
file = readFile.sync( 'beepboop', {
    'encoding': 'utf8'
});
// returns <error>
 
console.log( file instanceof Error );
// returns true
 
 
// Async:
readFile( __filename, onFile );
readFile( 'beepboop', onFile );
 
function onFile( error, data ) {
    if ( error ) {
        if ( error.code === 'ENOENT' ) {
            console.error( 'File does not exist.' );
        } else {
            throw error;
        }
    } else {
        console.log( 'Success!' );
    }
}

To run the example code from the top-level application directory,

$ node ./examples/index.js

Tests

Unit

Unit tests use the Mocha test framework with Chai assertions. To run the tests, execute the following command in the top-level application directory:

$ make test

All new feature development should have corresponding unit tests to validate correct functionality.

Test Coverage

This repository uses Istanbul as its code coverage tool. To generate a test coverage report, execute the following command in the top-level application directory:

$ make test-cov

Istanbul creates a ./reports/coverage directory. To access an HTML version of the report,

$ make view-cov

---

License

MIT license.

Copyright

Copyright © 2015. Athan Reines.