file-send

file-send

A http file send

Installation

$ npm install file-send

API

var http = require('http'),
  FileSend = require('file-send'),
  Send = FileSend('/', {
    etag: false,
    maxAge: '30d'
  });

http.createServer(function (request, response){
  Send.use(request) // Create a new send stream
    .pipe(response); // Send stream to client
});

FileSend(root, [options])

Create a new Send for the given root path and options to initialize.

Options

dotFiles

Set how "dotFiles" are treated when encountered. A dotFile is a file or directory that begins with a dot ("."). Note this check is done on the path itself without checking if the path actually exists on the disk. If root is specified, only the dotfiles above the root are checked (i.e. the root itself can be within a dotfile).

The default value is 'ignore'.

• 'allow' No special treatment for dotfiles.
• 'deny' Send a 403 for any request for a dotfile.
• 'ignore' Pretend like the dotfile does not exist and 404.

etag

Enable or disable etag generation, defaults to true.

extensions

If a given file doesn't exist, try appending one of the given extensions, in the given order. By default, this is disabled (set to false). An example value that will serve extension-less HTML files: ['html', 'htm']. This is skipped if the requested file already has an extension.

index

By default send supports "index.html" files, to disable this set false or to supply a new index pass a string or an array in preferred order.

lastModified

Enable or disable Last-Modified header, defaults to true. Uses the file system's last modified value.

maxAge

Provide a max-age in milliseconds for http caching, defaults to 0. This can also be a string accepted by the ms module.

Send.use(request)

var stream = Send.use(request); // The Send.use return a new send stream

Create a new SendStream for the given request and response.

Events

The SendStream is an event emitter and will emit the following events:

• error an error occurred (err)
• directory a directory was requested
• file a file was requested (path, stat)
• headers the headers are about to be set on a file (response, path, stat)
• stream file streaming has started (stream, next(stream))
• end streaming has completed

stream.pipe(response)

The pipe method is used to pipe the response into the Node.js HTTP response object, typically Send.use(req).pipe(res).

stream.url

Return the normalize request url.

stream.request

Return the http request.

stream.response

Return the http response.

stream.redirect(url)

Redirect url, if header already send, do nothing.

stream.error(status, [error])

Emit http error, if header already send will end the response with error message and status.

stream.send(path, stat)

The basic interface, send a file stream to response no filter. If it is not necessary to do not use.

Error-handling

By default when no error listeners are present an automatic response will be made, otherwise you have full control over the response, aka you may show a 5xx page etc.

Caching

It does not perform internal caching, you should use a reverse proxy cache such as Varnish for this, or those fancy things called CDNs. If your application is small enough that it would benefit from single-node memory caching, it's small enough that it does not need caching at all ;).

Debugging

To enable debug() instrumentation:

$ node app -v

or:

$ node app -verbose

Running tests

$ npm install
$ npm test

Examples

Serving from a root directory with custom error-handling:

var http = require('http'),
  FileSend = require('file-send'),
  Send = FileSend('/www/example.com/public'); // Set root

// Your custom error-handling logic:
function error(err) {
  var res = this.response;
  res.statusCode = err.status || 500;
  res.end(err.message);
}

// Your custom headers
function headers(res, path, stat) {
  // serve all files for download
  res.setHeader('Content-Disposition', 'attachment');
}

// Your custom directory handling logic:
function directory(path, stat) {
  // TODO You can do something here
  // Like displays the current directory file list
  this.response.end('This is a directory !');
}

var app = http.createServer(function(request, response){
  // Transfer arbitrary files from within /www/example.com/public/*
  Send.use(request)
    .on('error', error)
    .on('directory', directory)
    .on('headers', headers)
    .pipe(response);
}).listen(3000);

License

MIT