browser-line-reader

An asynchronous line by line file reader for the browser.

This project addresses the lack of asynchronous, promise aware, typescript based file reader solutions specifically crafted for the browser.

This module reads a File object, using the standard FileReader, one line at a time. In order to achieve this, the file is subject to multiple reads, in 'chunks', which can contain any number of lines.

The advantage of this method is that there is no need for the entire file to be stored in browser memory, and lines can be processed and then discarded. This is especially useful when reading in large files spanning many hundreds of megabytes.

Installation

npm install browser-line-reader --save

Usage

The following types are used in the type signatures below:

interface Options {
	encoding?: string;
}

type LineReaderCallback = (line: string) => void;

To get started, import the LineReader class as a default export.

import LineReader from 'browser-line-reader';

constructor

Type: (file: File) => LineReader

The LineReader class constructor accepting the File object to read.

const myFile: File = new File(['My name is...'], 'SlimShady');
const lineReader: LineReader = new LineReader(myFile);

readLines

Type: (callback?: LineReaderCallback) => Promise<number>

Read all the lines of a file, one by one. Accepts a callback with one parameter of type string, which is the line just read. Returns a promise containing the total number of lines read. Throws an error passed through from the internal FileReader.prototype.onerror event.

lineReader.readLines((line: string) => {
	console.log(line);
}).then((numLinesRead: number) => {
	console.log(`Finished and read ${numLinesRead} lines`);
}).catch((err) => {
	console.log(err);
});

readNLines

Type: (nLines: number, callback?: LineReaderCallback) => Promise<number>

Read the first n lines of a file of k lines, or all lines if n > k or n < 0. Return and exceptions are identical to Linereader.prototype.readLines.

lineReader.readNLines(10, (line: string) => {
	console.log(line);
});

Missing Features

• Support for different kinds of line separators
• Support for separate read header action
• Efficiency optimisations
• Benchmarking against standard FileReader API
• Add contributing guidelines

Please suggest or implement these or any other features you feel are missing.