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ZenFS

ZenFS is a file system that emulates the NodeJS filesystem API.

It works using a system of backends, which are used by ZenFS to store and retrieve data. ZenFS can also integrate with other tools.

ZenFS is a fork of BrowserFS. If you are using ZenFS in a research paper, you may want to cite BrowserFS.

Backends

ZenFS is modular and extensible. The core includes some built-in backends:

  • InMemory: Stores files in-memory. This is cleared when the runtime ends (e.g. a user navigating away from a web page or a Node process exiting)
  • Overlay: Use read-only file system as read-write by overlaying a writable file system on top of it. (copy-on-write)
  • Fetch: Downloads files over HTTP with the fetch API (readonly)
  • Port: Interacts with a remote over a MessagePort-like interface (e.g. a worker)

ZenFS supports a number of other backends. Many are provided as separate packages under @zenfs. More backends can be defined by separate libraries by extending the FileSystem class and providing a Backend object.

As an added bonus, all ZenFS backends support syncrohnous operations. All of the backends included with the core are cross-platform.

For more information, see the docs.

Installing

npm install @zenfs/core

Usage

Note

The examples are written in ESM.
If you are using CJS, you can require the package.
If using a browser environment without support for type=module in script tags, you can add a script tag to your HTML pointing to the browser.min.js and use ZenFS with the global ZenFS object.

import fs from '@zenfs/core'; // You can also use the named export, `fs`

fs.writeFileSync('/test.txt', 'Cool, I can do this in any JS environment (including browsers)!');

const contents = fs.readFileSync('/test.txt', 'utf-8');
console.log(contents);

Using different and/or multiple backends

A single InMemory backend is created by default, mounted on /.

You can configure ZenFS to use a different backend and mount multiple backends. It is strongly recommended to do so using the configure function.

You can use multiple backends by passing an object to configure which maps paths to file systems.

The following example mounts a zip file to /zip, in-memory storage to /tmp, and IndexedDB to /home. Note that / has the default in-memory backend.

import { configure, InMemory } from '@zenfs/core';
import { IndexedDB } from '@zenfs/dom';
import { Zip } from '@zenfs/zip';

const res = await fetch('mydata.zip');

await configure({
	mounts: {
		'/mnt/zip': { backend: Zip, data: await res.arrayBuffer() },
		'/tmp': InMemory,
		'/home': IndexedDB,
	}
};

Tip

When configuring a mount point, you can pass in

  1. A Backend object, if the backend has no required options
  2. An object that has the options accepted by the backend and a backend property which is a Backend object
  3. A FileSystem instance

Here is an example that mounts the WebStorage backend from @zenfs/dom on /:

import { configureSingle, fs } from '@zenfs/core';
import { WebStorage } from '@zenfs/dom';

await configureSingle({ backend: WebStorage });

if (!fs.existsSync('/test.txt')) {
	fs.writeFileSync('/test.txt', 'This will persist across reloads!');
}

const contents = fs.readFileSync('/test.txt', 'utf-8');
console.log(contents);

FS Promises

The FS promises API is exposed as promises.

import { configureSingle } from '@zenfs/core';
import { exists, writeFile } from '@zenfs/core/promises';
import { IndexedDB } from '@zenfs/dom';

await configureSingle({ backend: IndexedDB });

const exists = await exists('/myfile.txt');
if (!exists) {
	await writeFile('/myfile.txt', 'Lots of persistant data');
}

Note

You can import the promises API using:

  1. Exports from @zenfs/core/promises
  2. The promises export from @zenfs/core
  3. fs.promises on the exported fs from @zenfs/core.

Mounting and unmounting, creating backends

If you would like to create backends without configure (e.g. to do something dynamic at runtime), you may do so by importing the backend and calling resolveMountConfig with it.

You can then mount and unmount the backend instance by using mount and umount.

import { configure, resolveMountConfig, InMemory } from '@zenfs/core';
import { IndexedDB } from '@zenfs/dom';
import { Zip } from '@zenfs/zip';

await configure({
	mounts: {
		'/tmp': InMemory,
		'/home': IndexedDB,
	},
});

fs.mkdirSync('/mnt');

const res = await fetch('mydata.zip');
const zipfs = await resolveMountConfig({ backend: Zip, data: await res.arrayBuffer() });
fs.mount('/mnt/zip', zipfs);

// do stuff with the mounted zip

fs.umount('/mnt/zip'); // finished using the zip

Warning

Instances of backends follow the internal ZenFS API. You should never use a backend's methods unless you are extending a backend.

Using with bundlers

ZenFS exports a drop-in for Node's fs module (up to the version of @types/node in package.json), so you can use it for your bundler of preference using the default export.

Building

  • Make sure you have Node and NPM installed. You must have Node v18 or newer.
  • Install dependencies with npm install
  • Build using npm run build
  • You can find the built code in dist.

Testing

Run unit tests with npm test.