stream-shift

What is stream-shift?

The stream-shift npm package is designed for shifting the first chunk out of a readable stream. It is particularly useful when you need to process or inspect the first piece of data from a stream before deciding how to handle the rest of the stream. This can be handy in scenarios where the first chunk contains metadata or specific flags that determine the processing logic for the subsequent data.

What are stream-shift's main functionalities?

Shifting the first chunk from a stream

This code demonstrates how to use stream-shift to extract the first chunk of data from a readable stream. The `shift` function is called with the stream as its argument, and it returns the first chunk. This can be useful for inspecting or processing the first part of the stream differently from the rest.

const shift = require('stream-shift');
const stream = getSomeReadableStream();
const firstChunk = shift(stream);
if (firstChunk) {
  console.log('First chunk:', firstChunk.toString());
}

Other packages similar to stream-shift

through2

Through2 is a tiny wrapper around Node.js streams.Transform (Streams2/3) to make creating transform streams slightly more convenient. Unlike stream-shift, which is focused on shifting the first chunk from a stream, through2 is more versatile and allows for transforming stream data in general. It can be used for a variety of stream manipulation tasks.

concat-stream

Concat-stream is a writable stream that concatenates all the data from a stream and calls a callback with the result. It differs from stream-shift by focusing on collecting all data from a stream before processing, rather than dealing with chunks individually. This package is more suitable for scenarios where the entire stream content needs to be available before any processing can occur.

highland

Highland.js manages synchronous and asynchronous code easily, using nothing more than standard JavaScript and Node-like Streams. While stream-shift is specifically for shifting the first chunk of data, Highland provides a higher level abstraction for handling streams, including transforming, filtering, and aggregating stream data. It offers a more comprehensive solution for complex stream processing tasks.

README

stream-shift

Returns the next buffer/object in a stream's readable queue

npm install stream-shift

Usage

var shift = require('stream-shift')

console.log(shift(someStream)) // first item in its buffer

Credit

Thanks @dignifiedquire for making this work on node 6

License

MIT