vinyl-buffer

What is vinyl-buffer?

The vinyl-buffer npm package is used to convert streaming vinyl file objects into buffered vinyl file objects. This is particularly useful in build systems like Gulp where you may need to perform operations that require the entire file to be in memory.

What are vinyl-buffer's main functionalities?

Convert Stream to Buffer

This feature allows you to convert a stream into a buffer so that you can perform operations that require the entire file to be in memory. In this example, the vinyl-buffer package is used to convert the stream from browserify into a buffer so that it can be minified using gulp-uglify.

const gulp = require('gulp');
const vinylBuffer = require('vinyl-buffer');
const uglify = require('gulp-uglify');
const source = require('vinyl-source-stream');
const browserify = require('browserify');

gulp.task('scripts', function() {
  return browserify('src/app.js')
    .bundle()
    .pipe(source('bundle.js'))
    .pipe(vinylBuffer())
    .pipe(uglify())
    .pipe(gulp.dest('dist'));
});

Other packages similar to vinyl-buffer

gulp-buffer

The gulp-buffer package is similar to vinyl-buffer in that it also converts streaming vinyl file objects into buffered vinyl file objects. It is specifically designed to be used within Gulp pipelines, making it a more specialized alternative to vinyl-buffer.

through2

The through2 package is a general-purpose stream utility that allows you to transform and manipulate streams. While it is not specifically designed for converting vinyl file objects, it can be used to achieve similar functionality by writing custom transformation functions.

gulp-streamify

The gulp-streamify package is used to convert a stream into a buffered stream, allowing you to use plugins that only support buffered vinyl file objects. It is similar to vinyl-buffer but is designed to work specifically within Gulp pipelines.

README

vinyl-buffer

Convert streaming vinyl files to use buffers.

An alternative to gulp-streamify that you can pipe to, instead of being required to wrap your streams.

var browserify = require('browserify')
var source = require('vinyl-source-stream')
var buffer = require('vinyl-buffer')
var uglify = require('gulp-uglify')
var size = require('gulp-size')
var gulp = require('gulp')

gulp.task('build', function() {
  var bundler = browserify('./index.js')

  return bundler.pipe()
    .pipe(source('index.js'))
    .pipe(buffer())
    .pipe(uglify())
    .pipe(size())
    .pipe(gulp.dest('dist/'))
})

Usage

vinylBuffer()

Creates a transform stream that takes vinyl files as input, and outputs modified vinyl files as output. If file.isStream(), file.contents will be converted to a Buffer before being emitted again – otherwise, the file will be emitted immediately.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.md for details.