takeout

A Node module to get the file contents, seamlessly available for both local file system and HTTP(S)

var takeout = require('takeout');
 
// Reading a local file
takeout('path/to/local/file', {encoding: 'utf8'}, function(err, body) {
  if (err) {
    throw err;
  }
  
  console.log(body);
});
 
// GET request if the location is URL
takeout('http://nodejs.org', {encoding: 'utf8'}, function(err, body, res) {
  if (err) {
    throw err;
  }
 
  console.log(res.statusCode);
  console.log(body);
});

Installation

Use npm.

npm install takeout

API

var takeout = require('takeout');

takeout(location,[ options,] callback)

location: String (local file path or URL)
options: Object
callback: Function

If the location is a local file path, it reads the file with fs.readFile. If the locatiandon is a URL, it makes a GET request to the URL and grabs its response, using got.

// `http` and `https` scheme is optional.
takeout('www.npmjs.org', function(err, body, res) {
  if (err) {
    throw err;
  }
 
  console.log(res.statusCode);
  console.log(body);
});

options

In addition to the following, all options for fs.readFile and got are available.

options.encoding

Type: String or null
Default: null (In other words, the content is returned as a Buffer by default.)

Directly passed to fs.readFile options or setEncoding of the response data.

options.directoryIndex

Type: Boolean or String of filename
Default: index.html

When the path indicates a local directory, it reads index.html or a file with the specified filename immediately under the directory.

false disables this feature.

// |
// +- dist
//     +- index.html ('foo')
//     +- home.html ('bar')
 
takeout('dist', function(err, buf) {
  !err; //=> true
  buf.toString(); //=> 'foo'
});
 
takeout('dist', {directoryIndex: 'home.html'}, function(err, buf) {
  !err; //=> true
  buf.toString(); //=> 'bar'
});
 
takeout('dist', {directoryIndex: false}, function(err) {
  err.code; //=> 'ENOTFOUND'
});

callback(error, body, response)

error: Error if it fails to get the contents, otherwise null
body: Buffer or String (according to options.encoding)
response: Object (response object) if the content is got via HTTP(S), otherwise undefined

CLI

You can use this module as a CLI tool by installing it globally.

npm install -g takeout

Usage

Usage1: takeout <file path | URL> --out <dest>
Usage2: takeout <file path | URL> > <dest>
 
Options:
--out,      -o <file path>   Write the result to a file (stdout by default)
--encoding, -e <encoding>    Set encoding (same as Node's encoding option)
--index,    -d <filename>    Set the filename of directory index
--no-index,                  Do not care about directory index
--timeout,  -t <ms>          Set time after which the request will be aborted
--help,     -h               Print usage information
--version,  -v               Print version

You can do almost the same thing with cat and curl. But this tool works on various environments, as long as they supports Node.

License

Copyright (c) 2014 Shinnosuke Watanabe

Licensed under the MIT License.