How to read an entire text stream in node.js?

Question

In RingoJS there's a function called read which allows you to read an entire stream until the end is reached. This is useful when you're making a command line application. For example you may write a tac program as follows:

#!/usr/bin/env ringo

var string = system.stdin.read(); // read the entire input stream
var lines = string.split("\n");   // split the lines

lines.reverse();                  // reverse the lines

var reversed = lines.join("\n");  // join the reversed lines
system.stdout.write(reversed);    // write the reversed lines

This allows you to fire up a shell and run the tac command. Then you type in as many lines as you wish to and after you're done you can press Ctrl+D (or Ctrl+Z on Windows) to signal the end of transmission.

I want to do the same thing in node.js but I can't find any function which would do so. I thought of using the readSync function from the fs library to simulate as follows, but to no avail:

fs.readSync(0, buffer, 0, buffer.length, null);

The file descriptor for stdin (the first argument) is 0. So it should read the data from the keyboard. Instead it gives me the following error:

Error: ESPIPE, invalid seek
    at Object.fs.readSync (fs.js:381:19)
    at repl:1:4
    at REPLServer.self.eval (repl.js:109:21)
    at rli.on.self.bufferedCmd (repl.js:258:20)
    at REPLServer.self.eval (repl.js:116:5)
    at Interface.<anonymous> (repl.js:248:12)
    at Interface.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:96:17)
    at Interface._onLine (readline.js:200:10)
    at Interface._line (readline.js:518:8)
    at Interface._ttyWrite (readline.js:736:14)

How would you synchronously collect all the data in an input text stream and return it as a string in node.js? A code example would be very helpful.

Answer 1

As node.js is event and stream oriented there is no API to wait until end of stdin and buffer result, but it's easy to do manually

var content = '';
process.stdin.resume();
process.stdin.on('data', function(buf) { content += buf.toString(); });
process.stdin.on('end', function() {
    // your code here
    console.log(content.split('').reverse().join(''));
});

In most cases it's better not to buffer data and process incoming chunks as they arrive (using chain of already available stream parsers like xml or zlib or your own FSM parser)