Javascript – Read a file one line at a time in node.js

file-iojavascriptlazy-evaluationnode.js

I am trying to read a large file one line at a time. I found a question on Quora that dealt with the subject but I'm missing some connections to make the whole thing fit together.

 var Lazy=require("lazy");
 new Lazy(process.stdin)
     .lines
     .forEach(
          function(line) { 
              console.log(line.toString()); 
          }
 );
 process.stdin.resume();

The bit that I'd like to figure out is how I might read one line at a time from a file instead of STDIN as in this sample.

I tried: 

 fs.open('./VeryBigFile.csv', 'r', '0666', Process);

 function Process(err, fd) {
    if (err) throw err;
    // DO lazy read 
 }

but it's not working. I know that in a pinch I could fall back to using something like PHP, but I would like to figure this out.

I don't think the other answer would work as the file is much larger than the server I'm running it on has memory for.

Best Answer

Since Node.js v0.12 and as of Node.js v4.0.0, there is a stable readline core module. Here's the easiest way to read lines from a file, without any external modules:

const fs = require('fs');
const readline = require('readline');

async function processLineByLine() {
  const fileStream = fs.createReadStream('input.txt');

  const rl = readline.createInterface({
    input: fileStream,
    crlfDelay: Infinity
  });
  // Note: we use the crlfDelay option to recognize all instances of CR LF
  // ('\r\n') in input.txt as a single line break.

  for await (const line of rl) {
    // Each line in input.txt will be successively available here as `line`.
    console.log(`Line from file: ${line}`);
  }
}

processLineByLine();

Or alternatively:

var lineReader = require('readline').createInterface({
  input: require('fs').createReadStream('file.in')
});

lineReader.on('line', function (line) {
  console.log('Line from file:', line);
});

The last line is read correctly (as of Node v0.12 or later), even if there is no final \n.

UPDATE: this example has been added to Node's API official documentation.

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