Node.js read and write file lines

Question

I tried to read a file line by line, and output it to another file, using Node.js.

My problem is the sequence of lines sometimes messed up due to async nature of Nod

Answer 1

I suppose you want to perform some calculations and/or transformations on every line. If not, simple copy is one-liner (take a look at createReadStream documentation)

fs.createReadStream('./input.txt').pipe(fs.createWriteStream('./output.txt'));

Now, you are trying to open file each time you want to write line, and yes, order is unpredictable here. More correct version of your code:

var lines = fs.readFileSync('./input.txt').toString().split('\n')
function writeLineFromArray(lines) {
    var line = arr.shift();
    fs.open("./output.txt", 'a', 0666, function(err, fd) {
        fs.writeSync(fd, line + '\n', null, undefined, function(err, written) {
           writeLineFromArray(lines);
        });
    }); 
}
writeLinesFromArray();

I'd probably use one of 'given input stream, notify me on each line' modules, for example node-lazy or byline:

var fs = require('fs'),
    byline = require('byline');

var stream = byline(fs.createReadStream('sample.txt'));
stream.on('line', function(line) { 
    // do stuff with line
});
stream.pipe(fs.createWriteStream('./output');

Answer 2

If you're writing a synchronous code, use only the synchronous functions:

var fs  = require("fs");

fs.readFileSync('./input.txt').toString().split('\n').forEach(function (line) { 
    console.log(line);
    fs.appendFileSync("./output.txt", line.toString() + "\n");
});

For asynchronous approach you could write something like

var fs = require('fs'),
    async = require('async'),
    carrier = require('carrier');

async.parallel({
    input: fs.openFile.bind(null, './input.txt', 'r'),
    output: fs.openFile.bind(null, './output.txt', 'a')
}, function (err, result) {
    if (err) {
        console.log("An error occured: " + err);
        return;
    }

    carrier.carry(result.input)
        .on('line', result.output.write)
        .on('end', function () {
            result.output.end();
            console.log("Done");
        });
});

Answer 3

Why do not you use node.js plugin for the same: https://github.com/pvorb/node-read-files

Installation: npm install read-files

Usage:

  var fs = require("fs");
      require("read-files");

  fs.readFiles([ "file1", "file2" ], "utf8", function(err, data) {
      if (err) throw err;

      console.log(data);
  });