Node.js (v16.3.0) Handbook using TypeScript (v4.3.4) #

This handbook will use TypeScript to take you thru using Node.js. The table of contents has a list of topics that are covered in this handbook. You can easily jump to the section that is relevant to you or read them in any order that you like.

Additionally, here are some great resources to use a reference for your journey into Node.js.

Node.js installation on Linux (using brew) #

You can get the latest version of Node.js using brew, which is available on Linux and MacOS. Once you have brew installed, simply run brew install node.

Note that on Linux, when using apt instead of brew, the package is called nodejs and not node! So the brew package name is actually the “right” one.

Here are some differences when using brew vs apt.

  1. Unlike apt, the binaries for any global npm packages that you install will end up in /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/.
  2. Also you won’t need to use sudo anymore to install npm packages globally!

In IDEA / Webstorm if you use Prettier plugin or just to enable Node.js support, you might have to provide the location of some of the things that you have installed above. The instructions below are handy when configuring this.

I usually install the following packages globally after installing node using npm i -g prettier doctoc typescript ts-node ts-node-dev, so to follow along, I recommend doing the same.

I also create a symlink for these binaries in /usr/local/bin/ for convenience. For a globally installed npm package <some-npm-package>, here’s the pattern:

  • Symlinked binary is at cd /usr/local/bin ; sudo ln -s (which <some-npm-package>)
  • Actual binary is at /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/<some-npm-package>

As an example, let’s use prettier package.

  1. The prettier binary (symlink) is available at /usr/local/bin/prettier.
  2. The actual binary is located at /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin/prettier.

If you run into issue w/ IDEA not picking up your $PATH variable contents (for linuxbrew) in your File Watchers, you might need to add the following lines to your ~/.profile file, so that GNOME session can pick it up when your desktop session starts (vs when this is set in your terminal/shell initialization script).

# Set PATH so it includes linuxbrew for all child processes spawned by the Gnome shell.
# - https://superuser.com/a/398881/1102870
# - https://askubuntu.com/a/356973/872482
# - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EnvironmentVariables
if [ -d "/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew" ] ; then
    PATH="/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin:$PATH"
fi

Node.js project setup using IDEA #

IDEA Ultimate / Webstorm project files are provided in this github repo. You can clone the repo and tell IDEA / Webstorm to open the sub-folder nodejs-beginner-course and not the top level folder ts-scratch. You can open the project to try out the code that is shown in this handbook.

These are the steps that I followed to create this project.

  1. Use IDEA (Ultimate or Webstorm) create a new Node.js project.
  2. Use the ts-node-dev Node.js interpreter (not the default), which is located in /usr/local/bin/ts-node/dev (via the symlink created in the previous section).
  3. In the package.json add the following dev dep (npm i --save-dev @types/node@latest). Other dev deps will be added when you start importing various modules in your code.
  4. When creating a .ts file, in order to make it executable, you can do the following:
  5. Add #!/usr/bin/env ts-node to the top of the .ts file.
  6. Mark the file executable using chmod +x *.ts.
  7. Add a tsconfig.json file which enables strict mode, and dumps compiled output to a build folder. Also compile TypeScript files located in the src folder and its sub-folders only. 
    {
  exclude: ["node_modules"],
  include: ["./src/**/*"],
  compilerOptions: {
    strict: true,
    module: "CommonJS",
    target: "ES6",
    sourceMap: true,
    outDir: "build", // More info https://stackoverflow.com/a/49687441/2085356
  },
}

Node.js threading model #

Overview #

Node.js has two types of threads: one Event Loop and k Workers.

  1. The Event Loop is responsible for JavaScript callbacks and non-blocking I/O, and
  2. a Worker (out of the pool of k) executes tasks corresponding to C++ code that completes an asynchronous request, including blocking I/O and CPU-intensive work.

Both types of threads work on no more than one activity at a time. If any callback or task takes a long time, the thread running it becomes blocked. If your application makes blocking callbacks or tasks, this can lead to degraded throughput (clients/second) at best, and complete denial of service at worst.

To write a high-throughput, more DoS-proof web server, you must ensure that on benign and on malicious input, neither your Event Loop nor your Workers will block.

Event loop #

  • Node.js docs on event loop, workers, and best practices to avoid freezes

    • Best practices from doc above:

      • Avoid “vulnerable” regex.
      • Avoid synchronous versions of Node.js APIs for encryption, compression, file system, and child process.
      • Avoid using JSON parse and stringify for really large objects (these operations are very slow) . Libraries exist to handle these performance issues.

      • Avoid variable time complexity callbacks, try and keep them O(n). Here are some strategies to accomplish this.

        1. Partitioning: You can use setImmediate and chunk the long operation into smaller pieces.
        2. Offloading: The only drawback here is that the main thread is in a different “namespace” (JavaScript state of your application) than a worker thread, so you have to serialize & deserialize any objects that are passed between them. Also, you must also be careful about understanding whether your long running operations are CPU intensive or IO intensive, since they both have to be approached differently. However, if your app relies heavily on complex calculations, you should think about whether Node.js is really a good fit. Node.js excels for I/O-bound work, but for expensive computation it might not be the best option.
        • You have two choices to run CPU intensive JS code in the thread pool without writing a C/C++ addon.
        • You can create a C/C++ addon using N-API.

  • Video on how the event loop works

Worker threads API for JS code #

Without writing a C/C++ addon using N-API, you can use either of the following.

Streaming and high performance JSON APIs #

libuv and worker threads #

libuv is a multiplatform C library for async IO based on event loops, which exposes a general task submission API. Node.js uses the thread pool to handle “expensive” tasks.

This includes I/O for which an OS does not provide a non-blocking version (DNS, and file system), as well as particularly CPU-intensive tasks (Zlib and Crypto).

User defined C/C++ addons can also be run in this thread pool. However you should write these addons using the N-API.

You have two choices to run CPU intensive JS code in the thread pool without writing a C/C++ addon.

N-API for native addons #

Kotlin Native and C interop #

Message Queue and ES6 Job Queue #

Message Queue and setTimeout(), setImmediate() - execute at next tick #

Read the official Node.js docs about event loop and message queue.

When setTimeout(()=>{}, 0) is called, the Browser or Node.js starts the timer. Once the timer expires, in this case immediately as we put 0 as the timeout, the callback function is put in the Message Queue.

  • The Message Queue is also where user-initiated events like click or keyboard events, or fetch responses are queued before your code has the opportunity to react to them. Or also DOM events like onLoad.
  • The loop gives priority to the call stack, and it first processes everything it finds in the call stack, and once there’s nothing in there, it goes to pick up things in the message queue.
  • We don’t have to wait for functions like setTimeout, fetch or other things to do their own work, because they are provided by the browser, and they live on their own threads. For example, if you set the setTimeout timeout to 2 seconds, you don’t have to wait 2 seconds - the wait happens elsewhere (in the worker thread pool).

A setTimeout() callback with a 0ms delay is very similar to setImmediate(). The execution order will depend on various factors, but they will be both run in the next iteration of the event loop.

process.nextTick() - execute at the end of this tick #

Read the official Node.js docs about process.nextTick().

Every time the event loop takes a full trip, we call it a tick. When we pass a function to process.nextTick(), we instruct the engine to invoke this function at the end of the current operation, before the next event loop tick starts. Here’s an example.

process.nextTick(() => {
  /* Do something. */
})
  • The event loop is busy processing the current function code.
  • When this operation ends, the JS engine runs all the functions passed to nextTick calls during that operation.
  • It’s the way we can tell the JS engine to process a function asynchronously (after the current function), but as soon as possible, not queue it. Calling setTimeout(() => {}, 0) will execute the function at the end of next tick, much later than when using nextTick() which prioritizes the call and executes it just before the beginning of the next tick.

Use nextTick() when you want to make sure that in the next event loop iteration that code is already executed.

ES6 Job Queue (for Promises) #

Read the official Node.js docs about the ES6 job queue.

ECMAScript 2015 introduced the concept of the Job Queue, which is used by Promises (also introduced in ES6/ES2015). It’s a way to execute the result of an async function as soon as possible, rather than being put at the end of the call stack.

Promises that resolve before the current function ends will be executed right after the current function.

Using the analogy of a roller coaster ride at an amusement park:

  • The message queue puts you at the back of the queue, behind all the other people, where you will have to wait for your turn.
  • The job queue is the “fast pass” ticket that lets you take another ride right after you finished the previous one.

Here’s an example.

const bar = () => console.log("bar")

const baz = () => console.log("baz")

const foo = () => {
  console.log("foo")
  setTimeout(bar, 0)
  new Promise((resolve, reject) => resolve("should be right after baz, before bar")).then(
    (resolve) => console.log(resolve)
  )
  baz()
}

foo()

Call stack for the code above

Here’s more info from nodejs.dev on this.

TypeScript and JavaScript language #

Promises, async, await #

It is relatively simple to reason about using promises, as a way to eliminate callback hell. It is also relatively simple to “promisify” existing callback based APIs.

Here are some good reference links.

However, on the other side of the coin, when returning a promise, how does it all work? When does the promise execute? Here’s an example to illustrate this.

#!/usr/bin/env ts-node

type ResolveFnType<T> = (value: T) => void
type RejectFnType = (reason?: any) => void
type ExecutorFnType<T> = (resolveFn: ResolveFnType<T>, rejectFn?: RejectFnType) => void

// Can also write this as a named function.
// function myExecutorFn(resolveFn: ResolveFnType<string>) {
const myExecutorFn: ExecutorFnType<string> = (resolveFn: ResolveFnType<string>) => {
  resolveFn("hello world!")
}

function createMyPromise(): Promise<string> {
  const promise: Promise<string> = new Promise<string>(myExecutorFn)
  return promise
}

function main() {
  const promise: Promise<string> = createMyPromise()
  promise.then((value: string) => {
    console.log(value)
  })
}

main()

After running this code in the debugger w/ breakpoints set on every line in createMyPromise() we learn:

  1. The Promise takes an executor, which is the function that actually does the work of resolving or rejecting the promise. In this case, myExecutorFn().
  2. This executor is run at the moment at which the Promise is instantiated using new. In this simple example, once new Promise(myExecutorFn) is called, it then calls the myExecutorFn function before returning a promise object.

Here’s a more sophisticated example w/ timings and even using await.

#!/usr/bin/env ts-node

import * as chalk from "chalk"

type ResolveFnType<T> = (value: T) => void
type RejectFnType = (reason?: any) => void
type ExecutorFnType<T> = (resolveFn: ResolveFnType<T>, rejectFn?: RejectFnType) => void

// https://nodejs.org/api/process.html#process_process_hrtime_time
let startTime: [number, number] = process.hrtime()

function timeDiffMs(): number {
  const NS_PER_MS = 1e6
  return process.hrtime(startTime)[1] / NS_PER_MS
}

function handleImmediateExecutionPromise() {
  // Can also write this as a named function.
  // function myExecutorFn(resolveFn: ResolveFnType<string>) {
  const myExecutorFn: ExecutorFnType<string> = (resolveFn: ResolveFnType<string>) => {
    resolveFn("hello world!")
  }

  new Promise<string>(myExecutorFn).then((value) =>
    console.log(chalk.red(`immediate: ${value}, actual delay ${timeDiffMs()} ms`))
  )
}

function handleDeferredExecutionPromise(delayMs: number) {
  const myExecutorFn: ExecutorFnType<string> = (resolveFn) => {
    setTimeout(() => {
      resolveFn(`hello world! after ${delayMs} ms`)
    }, delayMs)
  }

  new Promise<string>(myExecutorFn).then((value) =>
    console.log(chalk.green(`using then(): ${value}, actual delay ${timeDiffMs()} ms`))
  )
}

async function handleDeferredExecutionPromiseWithAwait(delayMs: number) {
  const myExecutorFn: ExecutorFnType<string> = (resolveFn) =>
    setTimeout(() => resolveFn(`hello world! after ${delayMs} ms`), delayMs)

  const value = await new Promise(myExecutorFn)
  console.log(chalk.blue(`using await: ${value}, actual delay ${timeDiffMs()} ms`))
}

async function main() {
  startTime = process.hrtime()
  console.log(`Set startTime: ${startTime}, actual delay calculated from this timestamp`)

  handleImmediateExecutionPromise()
  handleDeferredExecutionPromise(500)

  console.log(chalk.yellow("before await!"))
  await handleDeferredExecutionPromiseWithAwait(200)

  console.log(chalk.yellow("end!"))
}

main()

Here’s another example of using top level await in a Node.js program, while mixing and matching the use of async, await, and promises.

import { ChildProcess, spawn } from "child_process"
import { ColorConsole, StyledColorConsole, Styles } from "r3bl-ts-utils"

class SpawnCProcToRunLinuxCommandAndGetOutput {
  readonly cmd = "find"
  readonly args = [`${process.env.HOME}`, "-type", "f"]

  run = async (): Promise<void> => {
    const child: ChildProcess = spawn(this.cmd, this.args)

    return new Promise<void>((resolveFn, rejectFn) => {
      child.on("exit", function (code, signal) {
        console.log(`Child process exited with code ${code} and signal ${signal}`)
        resolveFn()
      })
      child.stdout?.on("data", (data: Buffer) => {
        console.log(`Output : ${data.length}`)
      })
      child.stderr?.on("data", (data) => {
        rejectFn()
        console.log(`Error: ${data}`)
      })
    })
  }
}

const main = async (): Promise<void> => {
  console.log("start!")
  await new SpawnCProcToRunLinuxCommandAndGetOutput().run()
  console.log("done!")
}

main().catch(console.error)

Notes on the code above:

  • The call to main() at the very bottom of the snippet actually calls an function that returns a Promise. The catch() section actually handles any top level exceptions that are thrown.
  • In the main(), which is an async function, which returns a Promise, await is used to wait for the call to run() to actually complete. This is where promises and async / await are used together.
  • In run() a Promise is created (which is returned by this method) which actually is fulfilled when the child process actually completes, or is rejected when it encounters an error.

Use strict=true in tsconfig.json options #

Always set "strict"=true in your tsconfig.json.

Use unknown over any #

Because it does not propagate:

function foo1(bar: any) {
  const a: string = bar // no error
  const b: number = bar // no error
  const c: { name: string } = bar // no error
}

function foo2(bar: unknown) {
  const a: string = bar // 🔴 Type 'unknown' is not assignable to type 'string'.(2322)
  const b: number = bar // 🔴 Type 'unknown' is not assignable to type 'number'.(2322)
  const c: { name: string } = bar // 🔴 Type 'unknown' is not assignable to type '{ name: string; }'.(2322)
}

User defined type guards #

A guard is not a type, but a mechanism that narrows types.

Here are some examples of built-in type guards.

  1. typeof guard - This only works for JS primitive types that are checked at runtime (string, number, undefined, null, Boolean, and Symbol). It does not work for interfaces because that information is erased at runtime.

    class Properties {
  width: number = 0

  setWidth(width: number | string) {
    if (typeof width === "number") {
      this.width = width
    } else {
      this.width = parseInt(width)
    }
  }
}

  2. instanceof guard - This works with classes, but not interfaces. Type information for classes is retained at runtime by JS, but not interfaces.

    class Person {
  constructor(public name: string) {}
}

function greet(obj: any) {
  if (obj instanceof Person) {
    console.log(obj.name)
  }
}

  3. A custom type guard is a Boolean-returning function that can additionally assert something about the type of its parameter. You can create user defined type guards to test if an object has the shape of an interface.

The following code does not work.

interface Article {
  title: string
  body: string
}

function doSomething(bar: unknown) {
  const title: string = bar.title // 🔴 Error!
  const body: number = bar.body // 🔴 Error!
  console.log(title, body)
}

doSomething({ title: "t", body: "b" })
doSomething({ foo: "t", bar: "b" })

First try at using user defined type guards. It doesn’t narrow automatically!

interface Article {
  title: string
  body: string
}

function isArticle(param: unknown): boolean {
  const myParam = param as Article
  // 👍 One way of writing this without using string literals.
  if (myParam.title != undefined && myParam.body != undefined) {
    // The following works too.
    // if ("title" in myParam && "body" in myParam) {
    return true
  }
  return false
}

function doSomething(bar: unknown) {
  if (isArticle(bar)) {
    // 👎 You have to cast bar to Article as it does not narrow automatically.
    const article = bar as Article
    console.log("Article interface type: ", article.title, article.body)
  } else {
    console.log("unknown type", bar)
  }
}

doSomething({ title: "t", body: "b" })
doSomething({ foo: "t", bar: "b" })

Second try at writing this. Have to use string literals for the properties!

interface Article {
  title: string
  body: string
}

function isArticle(param: any): param is Article {
  // 👎 You lose the ability to autocomplete title and body (as shown above), string literals are
  // needed, which could be a problem with keeping things in sync.
  return "title" in param && "body" in param
}

function doSomething(bar: unknown) {
  if (isArticle(bar)) {
    // 👍 You don't have to cast bar to Article! It is automatically narrowed!
    console.log("Article interface type: ", bar.title, bar.body)
  } else {
    console.log("unknown type", bar)
  }
}

doSomething({ title: "t", body: "b" })
doSomething({ foo: "t", bar: "b" })

Third and best try, which solves both problems with previous tries.

interface Article {
  title: string
  body: string
}

function isArticle(param: any): param is Article {
  const myParam = param as Article
  return (
    myParam.title != undefined &&
    myParam.body != undefined &&
    typeof myParam.title == "string" &&
    typeof myParam.body == "string"
  )
}

function doSomething(bar: unknown) {
  if (isArticle(bar)) {
    console.log("Article interface type: ", bar.title, bar.body)
  } else {
    console.log("unknown type", bar)
  }
}

doSomething({ title: "t", body: "b" })
doSomething({ foo: "t", bar: "b" })

never “bottom” type #

  1. never is a bottom type (which is Nothing in Kotlin).
  2. The opposite of “top” type like Object in Java, and any in TypeScript or Kotlin.

Here’s an example.

function foo(param: boolean) {
  if (param) {
  } else if (!param) {
  } else {
    // WTF?! param is never and this code is unreachable!
    if (param) {
    }
  }
}

Another example.

/* @throws(Error) */
function getContentFromRoute(parsedUrl: ParsedUrl, routes: Array<Route>): Content {
  const matchingRoute: Optional<Route> = routes.find(
    (it: Route) => it.pathname === parsedUrl.pathname
  )

  this.error("bam! 🎇 🧯 🚒 💣")

  // This line is unreachable.
  return matchingRoute?.generateContentFn(parsedUrl.query) ?? this.error("no route found")
}

function error(message: string): never {
  throw new Error(message)
}

TypeScript JSDocs #

Here’s more information on TypeScript specific JSDocs.

Here are some examples.

/**
 * @param contextObject value of `it`
 * @param block lambda that accepts `it`
 * @return contextObject return the contextObject that is passed
 */
export const _also = <T>(contextObject: T, block: Receiver<T>): T => {
  block(contextObject)
  return contextObject
}

/**
 * @param contextObject value of `this`
 * @param lambda lambda that accepts `this`
 * @return contextObject return the result of the lambda
 */
export function _with<T, R>(contextObject: T, lambda: ImplicitReceiverWithReturn<T, R>): R {
  return lambda.blockWithReboundThis.bind(contextObject).call(contextObject)
}

this keyword and Kotlin scoping functions #

To understand advanced things about TypeScript, I decided to write the Kotlin scoping functions (with, apply, let, run, etc) in TypeScript.

Here are some references:

It is more complicated to handle “implicit” this scenario, since in TypeScript, there is no such thing. So we use this explicitly but even so, in a given lambda rebinding this poses a challenge. This is why I created an interface that describes the shape of an object which has a function. And for this object, this can be bound to the contextObject. The this keyword then works inside this object that is passed to _with and _apply shown below.

interface ImplicitReceiver<T> {
  blockWithReboundThis: (this: T) => void
}

interface ImplicitReceiverWithReturn<T, R> {
  blockWithReboundThis: (this: T) => R
}

/**
 * @param contextObject value of `this`
 * @param lambda lambda that accepts `this`
 * @return contextObject return the contextObject that is passed
 */
export function _apply<T>(contextObject: T, lambda: ImplicitReceiver<T>): T {
  lambda.blockWithReboundThis.bind(contextObject).call(contextObject)
  return contextObject
}

/**
 * @param contextObject value of `this`
 * @param lambda lambda that accepts `this`
 * @return contextObject return the result of the lambda
 */
export function _with<T, R>(contextObject: T, lambda: ImplicitReceiverWithReturn<T, R>): R {
  return lambda.blockWithReboundThis.bind(contextObject).call(contextObject)
}

Callable interfaces and implementations in TypeScript #

More info:

interface CallableIF {
  (text: string): string
}

const myCallableFn: CallableIF = (text: string) => "hello" + text

class MyCallableClass {
  // This is the method that actually ends up getting called.
  call(text: string): string {
    return "hello" + foo
  }

  // Factory method is actually what implements the callable interface.
  static create(): CallableIF {
    const instance = new MyClass()
    return Object.assign((text: string) => instance.call(text))
  }
}

const myObj = MyCallableClass.create()
console.log(myObj("foo"))

Testing with Jest #

Use Jest framework (made by Facebook). It is not tied to React development.

  1. Jest itself is built on top of Jasmine. Jest is fast, when compared to Karma (which is a test runner that uses a real browser and has to be paired w/ something like Jasmine for the actual test running).
  2. Jest does not use a real DOM (it uses js-dom) which makes it much faster compared to Karma.
  3. Given the speed of Jest, the huge developer adoption and support it has, along with its multiplatform testing capabilities (Vanilla JS, Node.js, React), and it works w/ React (via ts-jest), it is the testing platform of choice.

Setting up Jest and TypeScript #

It is a little complicated to set this up for TypeScript. The following instructions on the Jest getting started with TypeScript are not complete.

Step 1 - Install Jest and types #

Run the following to get Jest and its TypeScript bindings installed, along with ts-test which is a plugin that allows Jest to work directly w/ TypeScript files.

npm i -D jest ts-jest @types/jest

Step 2 - Create a new jest.config.ts file #

This is a very important step, since this jest.config.ts file (which can’t be a .js file) will tell Jest how to “deal” with TypeScript files. Once this is configured, everything else (running tests from the command line using jest or IDEA “just work”). Remember that you won’t actually run js-test but use jest instead; js-test is just a plugin for jest which has be configured correctly.

export default {
  preset: "ts-jest", // Tell Jest to use `ts-jest` plugin.
  testEnvironment: "node", // Execution environment (can't be `ts-node`).
  testMatch: ["<rootDir>/**/*.test.ts"], // Test files must end in `*.test.ts`.
  testPathIgnorePatterns: ["/node_modules/"], // Don't search for tests inside `node_modules`.
}

For information on what each of these keys mean, check out Configuring Jest.

Step 3 - Create test files #

Finally, you can create a .test.ts file. And then IDEA should be able to run it. Here’s an example.

describe("my test suite", () => {
  it("a spec with an expectation", () => {
    expect(true).toBe(true)
  })

  it("another spec with a different expectation", () => {
    expect(false).toBe(false)
  })
})

To learn how to write tests using Jasmine, check out these links.

User input and output via stdin, stdout #

Global console object #

There’s a global console object that is configured to write to process.stdout and process.stderr. The interesting thing is that you can pass an Error to console.error() in order to get a stack trace. You can also use the trace() method. Here are examples.

console.log("Hello World")
console.warn("This is a warning!")
console.error("This is an error")
console.error(new Error("🐛 This captures the stack trace here!"))
console.trace("🐛 This also captures the stack trace here!")

Another useful feature of console is console.time(string) and console.timeEnd(string). The first method starts a time (with the given string as key). A call to the second method with the same key prints the elapsed time.

const timerName = "For loop time"
console.time() // Does not print anything. Starts the timer.
for (let i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
  /* ... */
}
console.timeEnd(timerName) // Prints the time that has passed, eg "For loop time:0.123ms".

Yet another useful feature is the console.table() method which prints an array of objects that is passed to it. Here’s an example.

console.table([
  { name: "john", age: 12 },
  { name: "jane", age: 15 },
])

Here’s the output it produces.

┌─────────┬─────────┬──────────┐
│ (index) │  Name   │ Age      │
├─────────┼─────────┼──────────┤
│    0    │ 'john'  │    12    │
│    1    │ 'jane'  │    15    │
└─────────┴─────────┴──────────┘

Console class (and simple logging) #

You can use the Console class to write to files, instead of using the global console object that is tied to process.stderr and process.stdout. Here’s an example of a simple logger that writes errors to files.

const fs = require("fs")
const { Console } = require("console")

const output = fs.createWriteStream("./stdout.log")
const errorOutput = fs.createWriteStream("./stderr.log")

const logger = new Console({ stdout: output, stderr: errorOutput })

const number = 5
logger.log("number:", number)
// In stdout.log: number 5
const code = 9
logger.error("error code:", code)

readline from (global) console #

The readline module needs an interface to work. This interface can be a file or the console. We want to get input from the console and output some information on the console, via readline.

  1. In Node.js, the process object has two properties that can help us:
  • 👉 stdout for output - Prompts to the user are displayed via this.
  • 👈 stdin for input - User input is captured via this.
  1. We use the createInterface method to create a new readline.Interface instance that we can use to:
  • First, prompt the user for input as well (via question).
  • Second, read user input from the console (via callback to question).
  1. Finally, when it is time to end the CLI, close must be called on the readline.Interface otherwise the Node.js process will be waiting on the console’s stdin (even w/out being in the middle of executing the question method). That’s just the way the Node.js threading model works.

FP example using question (w/out using “line” event) #

The following are examples of functions to demonstrate the above. Here’s a function that kicks off the CLI Node.js sample.

import * as readline from "readline"

const main = async (argv: Array<string>) => {
  console.log(`Please type "${Messages.closeCommand}" or ${chalk.red("Ctrl+C")} to exit 🐾`)
  promptUserForInputViaConsoleInterface()
}

// https://nodejs.org/en/knowledge/command-line/how-to-parse-command-line-arguments/
main(process.argv.splice(2))

Here’s a function that creates a readline interface connected to the console.

function createReadlineConsoleInterface(): readline.Interface {
  const onCloseRequest = () => {
    console.log(chalk.red("Goodbye!"))
    consoleInterface.close()
  }
  const consoleInterface: readline.Interface = readline.createInterface({
    input: process.stdin,
    output: process.stdout,
  })
  consoleInterface.on("close", onCloseRequest)
  return consoleInterface
}

const ourConsoleInterface: readline.Interface = createReadlineConsoleInterface()

Here’s a function that uses the readline console interface to prompt the user (via process.stdout) for some input, and process their response (from process.stdin).

enum Messages {
  closeCommand = "quit",
  userPrompt = "Type something",
}

type ConsoleInterfaceCallbackFn = (whatTheUserTyped: string) => void

function promptUserForInputViaConsoleInterface() {
  const processWhatTheUserTyped: ConsoleInterfaceCallbackFn = (whatTheUserTyped) =>
    userInputHandler(whatTheUserTyped.toLowerCase())
  ourConsoleInterface.question(chalk.green(`${Messages.userPrompt}: `), processWhatTheUserTyped)
}

Here’s a function that processes what the user typed.

function userInputHandler(userInput: string) {
  // closeCommand issued. Stop the program by shutting the waiter down.
  if (userInput === Messages.closeCommand) {
    ourConsoleInterface.close()
    return
  }
  console.log(`🚀 You typed: ${chalk.yellow(userInput)}`)
  promptUserForInputViaConsoleInterface()
}

OOP example using “line” event (w/out using question) #

Instead of using the question method, we can simply rely on the line event, just like we rely on the close event (which is fired when the user presses Ctrl+C).

Here’s an OOP version of the code above that uses this pattern (I think the code is much cleaner w/out using question).

import * as readline from "readline"
import * as chalk from "chalk"

class UIStrings {
  public static readonly closeCommand = "quit"
  public static readonly userPrompt = `> Please type "${UIStrings.closeCommand}" or ${chalk.red(
    "Ctrl+C"
  )} to exit 🐾`
}

class CommandLineInterface {
  private readonly consoleInterface: readline.Interface

  constructor(message: string) {
    this.consoleInterface = readline.createInterface({
      input: process.stdin,
      output: process.stdout,
    })
    this.consoleInterface.on("line", this.onLineEntered)
    this.consoleInterface.on("close", this.onControlCPressed)
    this.setPrompt(message)
  }

  stop = () => {
    this.consoleInterface.close()
  }

  start = () => {
    this.consoleInterface.prompt()
  }

  setPrompt = (message: string) => {
    this.consoleInterface.setPrompt(message)
  }

  private onLineEntered = (line: string) => {
    switch (line) {
      case UIStrings.closeCommand:
        this.stop()
        return
      default:
        console.log(`> 🚀 You typed: ${chalk.yellow(line)}`)
        this.start()
    }
  }

  private onControlCPressed = () => {
    console.log(chalk.red("Goodbye!"))
    this.stop()
  }
}

const main = async (argv: Array<string>) => {
  const cli = new CommandLineInterface(UIStrings.userPrompt)
  cli.start()
}

/**
 * Dump all the command line arguments to console.
 * More info: https://nodejs.org/en/knowledge/command-line/how-to-parse-command-line-arguments/
 */
main(process.argv.splice(2))

Buffer #

Node.js has a Buffer class that provides us with the functionality we discussed above. This Buffer class is an array of bytes that is used to represent binary data. Streams, and other file system operations, are usually carried out with binary data, making buffers the ideal candidates for them.

The Buffer class is based on JavaScript’s Uint8Array. To put it simply, we can think of Buffer objects as arrays that only contain integers from 0 to 255. One distinction is that Buffer objects correspond to fixed-sized blocks of memory, which cannot be changed after they are created. There is no explicit way of deleting a buffer, but setting it to null will do the job. The memory will be handled by the garbage collector.

Events #

Some interesting things to note:

  • There’s a default error event that you can pass to an EventEmitter.
  • When you call emit you can pass varargs as the last argument. You have to be careful about receiving that in the event listener in the correct way.
import * as chalk from "chalk"
import * as utils from "r3bl-ts-utils"
import { printHeader } from "r3bl-ts-utils"
import { EventEmitter } from "events"

class Events {
  static readonly TimerName = "EventsTimer"
  static readonly Error = "error" /* Special Node.js error name. */
  static readonly Event1 = Symbol()
  static readonly Event2 = Symbol()
}

// EventEmitter - https://nodejs.org/api/events.html#events_emitter_emit_eventname_args

function main() {
  printHeader("Events")

  // Start timer.
  console.time(Events.TimerName)

  utils._let(new EventEmitter(), (emitter) => {
    // Handle Event1.
    emitter.on(Events.Event1, (...args: any[]) => {
      console.log(chalk.blue(`emitter.on -> Event1, args: ${JSON.stringify(args)}`))
      console.timeLog(Events.TimerName)
    })

    // Handle Event2.
    emitter.once(Events.Event2, (...args: any[]) => {
      console.log(chalk.green(`emitter.once -> Event2, args: ${JSON.stringify(args)}`))
      console.timeLog(Events.TimerName)
    })

    // Handle Error.
    emitter.on("error", (...errorArgs: any[]) => {
      console.error(chalk.red(`emitter.on('error') -> errorArgs: ${JSON.stringify(errorArgs)}`))
      console.timeLog(Events.TimerName)
    })

    // Fire Event1.
    printHeader("Fire Event1")
    utils._let(Events.Event1, (event) => {
      fireEvent(emitter, event, 100, "🐵", { foo: "bar" })
      fireEvent(emitter, event, 200)
    })

    // Fire Event2.
    printHeader("Fire Event2")
    utils._let(Events.Event2, (event) => {
      fireEvent(emitter, event)
      fireEvent(emitter, event)
    })

    // Fire Error.
    printHeader("Fire Error")
    fireError(emitter)
    fireError(emitter, 200, "💣", { errorCode: 50 })
  })
}

// TypeScript varargs -
// https://www.damirscorner.com/blog/posts/20180216-VariableNumberOfArgumentsInTypescript.html

const fireError = (
  emitter: EventEmitter,
  delayMs: number = 100,
  ...errorArgs: (string | object)[]
) =>
  setTimeout(() => {
    emitter.emit(Events.Error, ...errorArgs)
  }, delayMs)

const fireEvent = (
  emitter: EventEmitter,
  eventType: symbol | string,
  delayMs: number = 100,
  ...args: (string | object)[]
) =>
  setTimeout(() => {
    emitter.emit(eventType, ...args)
  }, delayMs)

main()

Files #

There are many fs APIs - async, sync, and promises. Use the fs.promises API so that it works well with async / await and promises.

Modules #

  1. Unlike browsers, global in Node.js is scoped to each module. So each module in Node.js has its own global object. And there is no such thing as the concept of a browser “global”.
  2. Each TS or JS file is considered a “module” by Node.js.
  3. A Node.js package is not the same as a module. Modules are related to exports and imports. Packages are things that are published to npm and added to other packages as deps.

OS, streams, process, network, etc. #

OS #

Process #

You can listen to various events fired by the process global object (which is also an EventEmitter instance). Here are some common ones: beforeExit, exit, and uncaughtException. Refer`to the sample code listed below for more details.

Streams, backpressure, pipes, files #

All streams are instances of EventEmitter. They emit events that can be used to read and write data. However, we can consume streams data in a simpler way using the pipe() method (defined in Stream). This method also handles errors, end-of-files, and the cases when one stream is slower or faster than the other (backpressure).

In other words:

Paradigm to work with Streams How to use
Events (stream is also EventEmitter) Use EventEmitter and attach listeners for data etc
Pipes (method defined on Stream) pipe(), which also handles errors, EOFs, backpressure

pipe #

Here’s some pseudocode to demonstrate how all this fits together.

readableSrc.pipe(writableDest)

And in more complex cases.

readableSrc.pipe(transformStream1).pipe(transformStream2).pipe(finalWrtitableDest)

Using a Linux analogy.

$ a | b | c | d

Is equivalent to.

a.pipe(b).pipe(c).pipe(d)

// Which is equivalent to:
a.pipe(b)
b.pipe(c)
c.pipe(d)

There is a lot to digest in the sample code above. There are some big concepts with streams and files. The async nature of Node.js really shows itself here. Here are some interesting things to note.

  1. File reads are asynchronous by nature. So when the pipe() function is called on a stream that happens asynchronously so there’s no waiting for it to finish and it returns an EventEmitter. That’s how these calls can be chained together.
  2. Without backpressure, the memory load is really high when writing a file “inefficiently”. This also has the result of making the gc work even harder, and the CPU even harder dealing w/ memory management. Piping and backpressure resolve this issue and the results are stark!
  3. File writes using a stream are async, but they also buffer in the OS file system. Linux will buffer the file and delay write it, even though Node.js will report that the file write is complete. This means that running fs.stat() immediately after the file write will result in incorrect file size being reported, since the size on disk is still growing.
  4. There are multiple ways of creating your own Writable and Readable streams. You can use the simplified constructor API or use classes instead.
  5. The console global object is just a Writable stream! This makes it possible to overwrite the output that has already been written w/out generating a new line! This is handy for showing long running progress. Take a look at color-console-utils.kt consoleLogInPlace method.
  6. Piping is an incredibly powerful feature for working with streams in a high performance and memory efficient way. Read the docs and tutorials above for details.

pipeline, transform stream, and errors #

pipe() does not report errors. pipeline() is what you must use when it comes to detecting error conditions. Here’s an example using a transform stream (which performs gzip compression).

Here’s a snippet that uses a gzip transform stream in between a read and write stream, with the use of backpressure, in other words:

Reader(UncompressedFile) -> gzip transform -> Writer(NewCompressedFile)

Or:

Reader(UncompressedFile) | gzip transform | Writer(NewCompressedFile)

Note - The promisified version of pipline on only works on Node.JS v15 and higher.

import { ColorConsole, sleep, StyledColorConsole, Styles } from "r3bl-ts-utils"
import { Constants } from "./Constants"
import * as fs from "fs"
import * as zlib from "zlib"
import { pipeline } from "stream/promises"

export class CompressLargeFileEfficiently {
  performCompression = async (): Promise<void> => {
    await this.actuallyCompress().catch(console.error)

    // Wait for disk flush.
    ColorConsole.create(textStyle1.blue)(
      "Waiting for disk to flush the write to file for 5s..."
    ).consoleLog()
    await sleep(5000)
  }

  private actuallyCompress = async (): Promise<void> => {
    const uncompressedSrcFileReader = fs.createReadStream(Constants.filePath)
    const compressedDestFileWriter = fs.createWriteStream(Constants.compressedFilePath)

    const gzipTransformer = zlib.createGzip()

    ColorConsole.create(textStyle1)(`Using pipeline() to compress file`).consoleLog()
    await pipeline(uncompressedSrcFileReader, gzipTransformer, compressedDestFileWriter)
  }
}

const main = async (): Promise<void> => {
  await new CompressLargeFileEfficiently().performCompression()
}

main().catch(console.error)

// One line version of two blocks above.
// await new CompressLargeFileEfficiently().performCompression().catch(console.error)

Child process #

Node.js makes it easy to spawn other child processes (OS processes and other instances of itself) in order to scale or overcome its single threaded nature.

Only when spawning other instances of itself it does it use IPC to send messages back and forth between these instances.

When combined w/ streams and pipe() this creates an incredibly powerful way to run processes and manage process execution on your host OS.

  • A child process (ChildProcess) is also an EventEmitter (ChildProcess is a subclass).
  • It has 3 streams as well: stdin, stdout, stderr. You can use pipe() on them! Every Stream is also an EventEmitter.

There are four different ways to create a child process in Node:

  1. spawn() - this is what we will look deeply into in this section. It can be used to run any OS command via a child process of the Node.js instance that executes this function.
  2. fork() - this is what spawns another Node.js instance and IPC is used to communicate between the instances.
  3. exec() - this actually spawns a shell in order to execute the command that is passed. It has one other major difference. It buffers the command’s generated output and passes the whole output value to a callback function (instead of using streams, which is what spawn does).
  4. execFile() - this is like exec() except that it does not generate a shell before executing the command.
  • There are also sync versions of these functions that block the main thread.
  • There is currently no promisified version, though you can use the util.promisify() functionality of Node.js to use promises. Here’s a thread on SO that shows some samples of how to write the promises yourself using TypeScript.

The examples in this section only look at the situation where you want to spawn a program on your OS in a child process of the Node.js process that you have started (and the other approaches are just skimmed).

Deep dive into spawn() #

The spawn function launches a command in a new process and we can use it to pass that command any arguments. Here’s an example.

Example 1 - spawn a child process to execute a command # 
import { ChildProcess, spawn } from "child_process"
import { ColorConsole, StyledColorConsole, Styles } from "r3bl-ts-utils"

export class SpawnCProcToRunLinuxCommandAndGetOutput {
  readonly cmd = "find"
  readonly args = [`${process.env.HOME}/github/notes/`, "-type", "f"]

  run = async (): Promise<void> => {
    const child: ChildProcess = spawn(this.cmd, this.args)
    return new Promise<void>((resolveFn, rejectFn) => {
      child.on("exit", function (code, signal) {
        ColorConsole.create(Styles.Primary.blue)(
          `Child process exited with code ${code} and signal ${signal}`
        ).consoleLog(true)
        resolveFn()
      })
      child.stdout?.on("data", (data: Buffer) => {
        StyledColorConsole.Primary(`Output : ${data.length}`).consoleLogInPlace()
      })
      child.stderr?.on("data", (data) => {
        ColorConsole.create(Styles.Primary.red)(`Error: ${data}`).consoleLog()
        rejectFn()
      })
    })
  }
}

const main = async (): Promise<void> => {
  await new SpawnCProcToRunLinuxCommandAndGetOutput().run()
}

main().catch(console.error)

Here are some notes on the code snippet above:

  • ChildProcess is a subclass of EventEmitter.
    • Events that we can register handlers for with the ChildProcess instances are:
    • disconnect, error, close, and message.
  • To get a stream out of it, you can use the stdin, stdout, and stderr properties of the ChildProcess instance, using:
    • child.stdin, child.stdout, and child.stderr.
    • When those streams get closed, the child process that was using them will emit the close event. This close event is different than the exit event because multiple child processes might share the same “stdio” streams, so one child process exiting does not mean that the streams got closed.
“stdio” streams for getting input to and output from child process commands #

Child processes (used to execute commands) have streams that are Readable and Writable. We can use them to send data to commands and to get the output or error from the commands.

In a child process, this is the inverse of those types found in a main process.

Stream R/W
process.stdin Readable
child.stdin Writable

We can use the event driven approach to get data in and out of these child processes, they are event emitters. We can listen to different events (eg: data) on those “stdio” streams that are attached to every child process.

In other words:

What you need from command What to use Stream
Output from command child.stdout.on("data") Readable
Error from command child.stderr.on("data") Readable
Input to command child.stdin Writable

However it is easier to use the

  • We can use the child process stdin which is a Writable stream.
  • Just like any Writable stream, the easiest way to consume it is using pipe().
  • We simply pipe a Readable stream into a Writable stream.
Example 2 - pipe process.stdin into child process command #

Since the main process stdin is a Readable stream, we can pipe that into a child process stdin stream. For example:

import { ChildProcess, spawn } from "child_process"
import { ColorConsole, notNil, StyledColorConsole, Styles } from "r3bl-ts-utils"

export class SpawnCProcAndPipeStdinToLinuxCommand {
  run = async (): Promise<void> => {
    ColorConsole.create(Styles.Secondary)(
      `Type words, then press Ctrl+D to count them...`
    ).consoleLog()

    const wcCommand: ChildProcess = spawn("wc")

    // Send input to command (from process.stdin), ie, process.stdin | wcCommand.stdin.
    notNil(wcCommand.stdin, (wcCommandStdin) => {
      process.stdin.pipe(wcCommandStdin)
    })

    return new Promise<void>((resolveFn, rejectFn) => {
      wcCommand.on("exit", function (code, signal) {
        ColorConsole.create(Styles.Primary.blue)(
          `Child process exited with code ${code} and signal ${signal}`
        ).consoleLog(true)
        resolveFn()
      })
      wcCommand.stdout?.on("data", (data: Buffer) => {
        StyledColorConsole.Primary(`Output: ${data}`).consoleLogInPlace()
      })
      wcCommand.stderr?.on("data", (data) => {
        ColorConsole.create(Styles.Primary.red)(`Error: ${data}`).consoleLog()
        rejectFn()
      })
    })
  }
}

const main = async (): Promise<void> => {
  await new SpawnCProcAndPipeStdinToLinuxCommand().run()
}

main().catch(console.error)

In the example above:

  • The child process invokes the wc command, which counts lines, words, and characters in Linux.
  • We then pipe the main process stdin (which is a Readable stream) into the child process stdin (which is a Writable stream).
  • The result of this combination is that we get a standard input mode where we can type something, and when we hit Ctrl+D what we typed will be used as the input of the wc command.
Example 3 - pipe the output of one child process command into another one #

We can also pipe the standard input/output of multiple processes on each other, just like we can do with Linux commands. For example, we can pipe the stdout of the find command to the stdin of the wc command to count all the files in the current directory.

import { ChildProcess, spawn } from "child_process"
import { ColorConsole, notNil, StyledColorConsole, Styles } from "r3bl-ts-utils"

export class SpawnCProcToPipeOutputOfOneLinuxCommandIntoAnother {
  run = async (): Promise<void> => {
    const findChildProcess: ChildProcess = spawn("find", [
      `${process.env.HOME}/github/notes/`,
      "-type",
      "f",
    ])

    const wcChildProcess: ChildProcess = spawn("wc", ["-l"])

    notNil(findChildProcess.stdout, (find) =>
      notNil(wcChildProcess.stdin, (wc) => {
        find.pipe(wc)
      })
    )

    return new Promise<void>((resolveFn, rejectFn) => {
      wcChildProcess.on("exit", function (code, signal) {
        ColorConsole.create(Styles.Primary.blue)(
          `Child process exited with code ${code} and signal ${signal}`
        ).consoleLog(true)
        resolveFn()
      })
      wcChildProcess.stdout?.on("data", (data: Buffer) => {
        StyledColorConsole.Primary(`Number of files ${data}`).consoleLogInPlace()
      })
      wcChildProcess.stderr?.on("data", (data) => {
        ColorConsole.create(Styles.Primary.red)(`Error: ${data}`).consoleLog()
        rejectFn()
      })
    })
  }
}

const main = async () => {
  await new SpawnCProcToPipeOutputOfOneLinuxCommandIntoAnother().run()
}

main().catch(console.error)
Example 4 - ugly code to redirect the output of one child process command to another one #

Without using pipe() the code would be pretty ugly.

Let’s convert the following shell script to Node.js w/out using pipe().

ps ax | grep ssh

Here’s the ugly code (using pipe() is far superior).

const { spawn } = require("child_process")

const ps = spawn("ps", ["ax"])
const grep = spawn("grep", ["ssh"])

ps.stdout.on("data", (data) => {
  grep.stdin.write(data)
})
ps.stderr.on("data", (data) => {
  console.error(`ps stderr: ${data}`)
})
ps.on("close", (code) => {
  if (code !== 0) {
    console.log(`ps process exited with code ${code}`)
  }
  grep.stdin.end()
})

grep.stdout.on("data", (data) => {
  console.log(data.toString())
})
grep.stderr.on("data", (data) => {
  onsole.error(`grep stderr: ${data}`)
})
grep.on("close", (code) => {
  if (code !== 0) {
    console.log(`grep process exited with code ${code}`)
  }
})

Killing or aborting a child process #

To kill a child process, you can call kill().

If the signal option (of type AbortSignal) is enabled, calling .abort() on the corresponding AbortController is similar to calling .kill() on the child process except the error passed to the callback will be an AbortError. Node.js docs . For example:

const { spawn } = require("child_process")
const controller = new AbortController()
const { signal } = controller

const grep = spawn("grep", ["ssh"], { signal })
grep.on("error", (err) => {
  // This will be called with err being an AbortError if the controller aborts
})
controller.abort() // Stops the child process

Brief exploration of exec() #

Here’s an example.

const { exec } = require("child_process")

exec("find . -type f | wc -l", (err, stdout, stderr) => {
  if (err) {
    console.error(`exec error: ${err}`)
    return
  }

  console.log(`Number of files ${stdout}`)
})

Brief exploration of fork() #

fork() is a variation of spawn() for spawning node processes. The biggest difference between spawn and fork is that a communication channel is established to the child process when using fork, so we can use send() on the forked process along with the global process object itself to exchange messages between the parent and forked processes.

We do this through the EventEmitter module interface. Here’s an example:

The parent file, parent.js:

const { fork } = require("child_process")

const forked = fork("child.js")

forked.on("message", (msg) => {
  console.log("Message from child", msg)
})

forked.send({ hello: "world" })

The child file, child.js:

process.on("message", (msg) => {
  console.log("Message from parent:", msg)
})

let counter = 0

setInterval(() => {
  process.send({ counter: counter++ })
}, 1000)

Example of replacing a fish script using spawn #

Here’s a simple fish script that looks for the path to linuxbrew in $HOME/.profile so that GNOME sessions can load it into their path. This is needed for processes that are spawned from GNOME shell to be able to use Node.js that is installed using Linuxbrew.

#!/usr/bin/env fish

set searchString "linuxbrew"
set dotProfileFile "$HOME/.profile"

function _writeToDotProfileFile
  echo >> $dotProfileFile '
if [ -d "/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew" ] ; then
  PATH="/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin:$PATH"
fi
'
end

function addLinuxbrewToGnomeSessionPath
  set -l grepResponse (grep $searchString $dotProfileFile)

  # echo "grepResponse: '$grepResponse'"

  if test -n "$grepResponse"
    echo "$searchString found in $dotProfileFile, nothing to do."
  else
    echo "$searchString not found in $dotProfileFile, make sure to add it."
    _writeToDotProfileFile
  end
end

if test (uname) = "Linux"
  # This is Linux.
  addLinuxbrewToGnomeSessionPath
else
  # This is macOS.
end

Now, here’s the equivalent script written in Node.js using spawn().

import { _also, ColorConsole, Optional, StyledColorConsole, Styles } from "r3bl-ts-utils"
import * as fs from "fs"

/**
 * Using constant object instead of enum (better choice here since it allows computed values).
 * More info:
 * - https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/enums.html#objects-vs-enums
 * - https://blog.logrocket.com/const-assertions-are-the-killer-new-typescript-feature-b73451f35802/
 */
const MyConstants = {
  gnomeDotProfileFile: process.env.HOME + "/.profile",
  linuxbrewSearchTerm: "linuxbrew",
  defaultLinuxbrewPath: "/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew",
} as const

export class SpawnCProcToReplaceFunctionalityOfFishScript {
  run = async (): Promise<void> => {
    try {
      const isFound = await this.doesGnomeProfileContainLinuxbrewPath()
      if (isFound) {
        ColorConsole.create(Styles.Primary.green)(
          `Nothing to do, ${MyConstants.linuxbrewSearchTerm} is already in ${MyConstants.gnomeDotProfileFile}`
        ).consoleLog()
        return
      }
      await this.addPathToGnomeProfileFile()
    } catch (e) {
      ColorConsole.create(Styles.Primary.red)(`Error: ${e}`).consoleError()
    }
  }

  // https://nodesource.com/blog/understanding-streams-in-nodejs/
  doesGnomeProfileContainLinuxbrewPath = async (): Promise<boolean> => {
    return new Promise<boolean>((resolveFn, rejectFn) => {
      let isFound = false
      _also(fs.createReadStream(MyConstants.gnomeDotProfileFile), (it) => {
        it.on("data", (data: Buffer | string) => {
          isFound = data.includes(MyConstants.linuxbrewSearchTerm)
        })
        it.on("end", () => {
          resolveFn(isFound)
        })
        it.on("error", () => {
          rejectFn()
        })
      })
    })
  }

  addPathToGnomeProfileFile = async (): Promise<void> => {
    const overriddenLinuxbrewPath: Optional<string> = process.env.PATH?.split(":")
      .filter((pathElement) => pathElement.includes(MyConstants.linuxbrewSearchTerm))
      .shift()
    const linuxbrewPath: string = overriddenLinuxbrewPath ?? MyConstants.defaultLinuxbrewPath

    StyledColorConsole.Primary(`linuxbrewPath: ${linuxbrewPath}`).consoleLog()

    const snippetToAppend = `if [ -d "${linuxbrewPath}" ] ; then
  PATH="${linuxbrewPath}/bin:$PATH"
fi`

    StyledColorConsole.Primary(`snippet: ${snippetToAppend}`).consoleLog()

    return new Promise<void>((resolveFn, rejectFn) => {
      fs.appendFile(
        MyConstants.gnomeDotProfileFile,
        snippetToAppend,
        (err: NodeJS.ErrnoException | null) => {
          const _onErr = () => {
            rejectFn()
            ColorConsole.create(Styles.Primary.red)(
              `Problem appending file ${MyConstants.gnomeDotProfileFile}`
            ).consoleError()
          }
          const _onOk = () => {
            resolveFn()
            StyledColorConsole.Primary(
              `Appended file ${MyConstants.gnomeDotProfileFile}`
            ).consoleLog()
          }
          err ? _onErr() : _onOk()
        }
      )
    })
  }
}

const main = async () => {
  await new SpawnCProcToReplaceFunctionalityOfFishScript().run()
}

main().catch(console.error)

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