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

The data variable contains a Buffer object. Convert it into ASCII encoding using the following syntax:

data.toString('ascii', 0, data.length)

Asynchronously:

fs.readFile('test.txt', 'utf8', function (error, data) {
    if (error) throw error;
    console.log(data.toString());
});