Node Express sending image files as API response

Question

I Googled this but couldn\'t find an answer but it must be a common problem. This is the same question as Node request (read image stream - pipe back to response), which is

Answer 1

a proper solution with streams and error handling is below:

const fs = require('fs')
const stream = require('stream')

app.get('/report/:chart_id/:user_id',(req, res) => {
  const r = fs.createReadStream('path to file') // or any other way to get a readable stream
  const ps = new stream.PassThrough() // <---- this makes a trick with stream error handling
  stream.pipeline(
   r,
   ps, // <---- this makes a trick with stream error handling
   (err) => {
    if (err) {
      console.log(err) // No such file or any other kind of error
      return res.sendStatus(400); 
    }
  })
  ps.pipe(res) // <---- this makes a trick with stream error handling
})

with Node older then 10 you will need to use pump instead of pipeline.

Answer 2

There is an api in Express.

res.sendFile

app.get('/report/:chart_id/:user_id', function (req, res) {
    // res.sendFile(filepath);
});

http://expressjs.com/en/api.html#res.sendFile