stronger-typed-streams

stronger-typed-streams

While I am a fan of RxJS there are still advantages to using just plain NodeJS Streams, the main one for me being that back-pressure just works.

The TypeScript bindings for NodeJS Streams are perfectly adequate themselves but I felt that the typings could also ensure that the Readable is outputting to a compatible Writable or Transform.

This mini project, which really is pretty much just subclasses of the NodeJS Streams classes aims to address that deficiency. This means that if you have a model of the following:

`Farm` -> `Bakery` -> `Shop`

Where Flour is the input to the Bakery, which converts it into Bread for selling in the shop. Going from Farm to Shop directly is not allowed as customers of the shop wish to buy bread not flour.

In code the only valid way to join these should be:

let farm = new Farm({highWaterMark: 1});
let bakery = new Bakery({highWaterMark: 1});
let shop = new Shop({highWaterMark: 1}, stock);

let supplyChain = farm.pipe(bakery).pipe(shop);

But the core NodeJS TypeScript bindings would allow going directly from farm to shop.

Installation

npm install --save stronger-typed-streams

Usage

Create a subclass of to plant and sow grain:

class Farm extends Readable<Flour> {

    private i: number = 0;

    constructor(opts = {}) {
        super(Object.assign({objectMode: true}, opts));
    }

    _read() {
        let v = this.i++ < 8 ? new Flour(1) : null;
        process.nextTick(() => {
            this.push(v);
        });
    }
}

And a class that converts Flour to Bread:

class Bakery extends Transform<Flour, Bread> {

    private flour: Flour[] = [];

    constructor(opts = {}) {
        super(Object.assign({objectMode: true}, opts));
    }

    _flush(cb) {
        process.nextTick(() => {
            if (this.flour.length) {
                this.push(new Bread(this.flour));
            }
            this.flour = [];
            cb();
        });
    }

    _transform(flour: Flour, encoding, cb) {
        process.nextTick(() => {
            this.flour.push(flour);
            if (this.flour.length >= 3) {
                this._flush(cb);
                return;
            }
            cb();
        });
    }

}

And something to sell the finished product to the consumers:

class Shop extends Writable<Bread> {

    constructor(opts = {}, out) {
        super(Object.assign({objectMode: true}, opts));
    }

    _write(bread: Bread, encoding, cb) {
        process.nextTick(() => {
            console.log("Bread for sale!);
            cb();
        });
    }
}

Now create a supply chain by joining instances of all the classes together:

let farm = new Farm({highWaterMark: 1});
let bakery = new Bakery({highWaterMark: 1});
let shop = new Shop({highWaterMark: 1}, stock);

let supplyChain = farm.pipe(bakery).pipe(shop);

If you tried to attach a Farm directly to a Shop the TypeScript compiler would tell you:

TS2345: Argument of type 'Shop' is not assignable to parameter of type 'Writable<Flour>'.

Which is absolutely correct and allows you to catch errors at compile time instead of runtime, perhaps in the wild.

There is also a Duplex implementation, but this is only tested in Node versions >= 8 because in the tests I an API method that is only available in Node 8+.