Why does Node.js' fs.readFile() return a buffer instead of string?

Question

I\'m trying to read the content of test.txt(which is on the same folder of the Javascript source) and display it using this code:

var fs = requi         


        

Answer 1

From the docs:

If no encoding is specified, then the raw buffer is returned.

Which might explain the . Specify a valid encoding, for example utf-8, as your second parameter after the filename. Such as,

fs.readFile("test.txt", "utf8", function(err, data) {...});