[javascript] How to create streams from string in Node.Js?

I am using a library, ya-csv, that expects either a file or a stream as input, but I have a string.

How do I convert that string into a stream in Node?

Do not use Jo Liss's resumer answer. It will work in most cases, but in my case it lost me a good 4 or 5 hours bug finding. There is no need for third party modules to do this.

NEW ANSWER:

var Readable = require('stream').Readable

var s = new Readable()
s.push('beep')    // the string you want
s.push(null)      // indicates end-of-file basically - the end of the stream

This should be a fully compliant Readable stream. See here for more info on how to use streams properly.

OLD ANSWER: Just use the native PassThrough stream:

var stream = require("stream")
var a = new stream.PassThrough()
a.write("your string")
a.end()

a.pipe(process.stdout) // piping will work as normal
/*stream.on('data', function(x) {
   // using the 'data' event works too
   console.log('data '+x)
})*/
/*setTimeout(function() {
   // you can even pipe after the scheduler has had time to do other things
   a.pipe(process.stdout) 
},100)*/

a.on('end', function() {
    console.log('ended') // the end event will be called properly
})

Note that the 'close' event is not emitted (which is not required by the stream interfaces).

As @substack corrected me in #node, the new streams API in Node v10 makes this easier:

const Readable = require('stream').Readable;
const s = new Readable();
s._read = () => {}; // redundant? see update below
s.push('your text here');
s.push(null);

… after which you can freely pipe it or otherwise pass it to your intended consumer.

It's not as clean as the resumer one-liner, but it does avoid the extra dependency.

(Update: in v0.10.26 through v9.2.1 so far, a call to push directly from the REPL prompt will crash with a not implemented exception if you didn't set _read. It won't crash inside a function or a script. If inconsistency makes you nervous, include the noop.)

I got tired of having to re-learn this every six months, so I just published an npm module to abstract away the implementation details:

https://www.npmjs.com/package/streamify-string

This is the core of the module:

const Readable = require('stream').Readable;
const util     = require('util');

function Streamify(str, options) {

  if (! (this instanceof Streamify)) {
    return new Streamify(str, options);
  }

  Readable.call(this, options);
  this.str = str;
}

util.inherits(Streamify, Readable);

Streamify.prototype._read = function (size) {

  var chunk = this.str.slice(0, size);

  if (chunk) {
    this.str = this.str.slice(size);
    this.push(chunk);
  }

  else {
    this.push(null);
  }

};

module.exports = Streamify;

str is the string that must be passed to the constructor upon invokation, and will be outputted by the stream as data. options are the typical options that may be passed to a stream, per the documentation.

According to Travis CI, it should be compatible with most versions of node.

There's a module for that: https://www.npmjs.com/package/string-to-stream

var str = require('string-to-stream')
str('hi there').pipe(process.stdout) // => 'hi there' 

JavaScript is duck-typed, so if you just copy a readable stream's API, it'll work just fine. In fact, you can probably not implement most of those methods or just leave them as stubs; all you'll need to implement is what the library uses. You can use Node's pre-built EventEmitter class to deal with events, too, so you don't have to implement addListener and such yourself.

Here's how you might implement it in CoffeeScript:

class StringStream extends require('events').EventEmitter
  constructor: (@string) -> super()

  readable: true
  writable: false

  setEncoding: -> throw 'not implemented'
  pause: ->    # nothing to do
  resume: ->   # nothing to do
  destroy: ->  # nothing to do
  pipe: -> throw 'not implemented'

  send: ->
    @emit 'data', @string
    @emit 'end'

Then you could use it like so:

stream = new StringStream someString
doSomethingWith stream
stream.send()

Just create a new instance of the stream module and customize it according to your needs:

var Stream = require('stream');
var stream = new Stream();

stream.pipe = function(dest) {
  dest.write('your string');
  return dest;
};

stream.pipe(process.stdout); // in this case the terminal, change to ya-csv

or

var Stream = require('stream');
var stream = new Stream();

stream.on('data', function(data) {
  process.stdout.write(data); // change process.stdout to ya-csv
});

stream.emit('data', 'this is my string');

in coffee-script:

class StringStream extends Readable
  constructor: (@str) ->
    super()

  _read: (size) ->
    @push @str
    @push null

use it:

new StringStream('text here').pipe(stream1).pipe(stream2)

Another solution is passing the read function to the constructor of Readable (cf doc stream readeable options)

var s = new Readable({read(size) {
    this.push("your string here")
    this.push(null)
  }});

you can after use s.pipe for exemple

Heres a tidy solution in TypeScript:

import { Readable } from 'stream'

class ReadableString extends Readable {
    private sent = false

    constructor(
        private str: string
    ) {
        super();
    }

    _read() {
        if (!this.sent) {
            this.push(Buffer.from(this.str));
            this.sent = true
        }
        else {
            this.push(null)
        }
    }
}

const stringStream = new ReadableString('string to be streamed...')

Edit: Garth's answer is probably better.

My old answer text is preserved below.

To convert a string to a stream, you can use a paused through stream:

through().pause().queue('your string').end()

Example:

var through = require('through')

// Create a paused stream and buffer some data into it:
var stream = through().pause().queue('your string').end()

// Pass stream around:
callback(null, stream)

// Now that a consumer has attached, remember to resume the stream:
stream.resume()