Exposing Promise / Deferred Functionality On Streams In Node.js

content-stream.js

// Require our core node modules.
var Buffer = require( "buffer" ).Buffer;
var Q = require( "q" );
var stream = require( "stream" );
var util = require( "util" );


// ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- //
// ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- //


// I am a factory function for creating writable content streams. If maxContentLength
// is omitted, the content stream will use the default value.
exports.createWriteStream = function( maxContentLength ) {

	return( new ContentStream( maxContentLength ) );

};


// I am a writable stream that accumulates content across writes and emits a "content"
// event once the entirety of the content has been aggregated. The content is emitted
// as a UTF-8 encoded value (for now).
function ContentStream( newMaxContentLength ) {

	// Call the super constructor.
	stream.Writable.call( this );

	// I am the max length that the aggregated content size can be. If the max size is
	// exceeded, an error is emitted.
	this.maxContentLength = ( newMaxContentLength || 65536 ); // 64Kb.

	// I hold the running sum of buffer lengths being aggregated internally. I am used
	// to validate the max content length.
	this._contentLength = 0 ;

	// I hold the individual chunks across writes so that we don't have to concat all
	// the chunk values until the stream is finished.
	this._buffers = [];

	// I am the deferred value representation of the stream state.
	// --
	// NOTE: The stream and the deferred value are only linked because we say they are
	// linked. As such, it's up to us to determine the interplay between stream events
	// and the deferred value.
	this._deferred = Q.defer();

	// Expose the promise on the stream.
	var promise = this.promise = this._deferred.promise;

	// Expose the promise methods on the stream itself (as a convenience). Since the
	// Promise is implemented using prototypal inheritance (as opposed to relying on
	// lexical binding), we have to bind the method references back to the promise.
	// --
	// NOTE: This makes the stream a "thenable" object.
	this.then = promise.then.bind( promise );
	this.catch = promise.catch.bind( promise );
	this.finally = promise.finally.bind( promise );

	// When the stream is closed, and the finish event is emitted; at that point, we can
	// flatten all of the aggregated buffers.
	this.once( "finish", this._handleFinishEvent );

	// When the content event is emitted, we can use that resolve the deferred value.
	// --
	// NOTE: We are using .once() since we can only resolve the value once.
	this.once( "content", this._deferred.resolve );

	// If anything goes wrong, the stream will emit an error, which we can use to reject
	// the deferred value.
	// --
	// CAUTION: Since we are binding to the error event, it will be sufficient to stop
	// the error event from bubbling up as an exception. However, any existing "pipe"
	// will be automatically unpiped due to the default stream behavior. That said, we
	// are using .on() (instead of .once()) so that we will catch more than one error
	// event. Just because we reject the deferred value, it doesn't mean that we want to
	// start letting subsequent error events go unhandled.
	this.on( "error", this._deferred.reject );

}

util.inherits( ContentStream, stream.Writable );


// ---
// PRIVATE METHODS.
// ---


// I handle the finish event emitted on the stream, which is emitted once the write
// stream has been closed.
ContentStream.prototype._handleFinishEvent = function() {

	// Collapse all the buffers into a single string value.
	var content = Buffer.concat( this._buffers ).toString( "utf-8" );

	this.emit( "content", content );

};


// I consume the chunk of data being written to the stream.
ContentStream.prototype._write = function( chunk, encoding, chunkConsumed ) {

	// The stream and the underlying deferred value are not inherently linked. As such,
	// there's nothing that will stop the stream from accepting writes just because the
	// deferred value has been resolved or rejected. As such, we have to reject any write
	// that is executed after the deferred value is no longer in a pending state.
	if ( ! this.promise.isPending() ) {

		return( chunkConsumed( new Error( "Stream is no longer pending." ) ) );

	}

	// Check to see if the incoming chunk puts the accumulated content length over
	// the max allowed length. If so, pass-through an error (which will lead to an
	// error event being emitted, which will lead to our deferred value being rejected).
	if ( ( this._contentLength += chunk.length ) > this.maxContentLength ) {

		return( chunkConsumed( new Error( "Content too large." ) ) );

	}

	this._buffers.push( chunk );

	chunkConsumed();

};

test.js

// Require our core node modules.
var http = require( "http" );
var util = require( "util" );

// Require our core application modules.
var createContentStream = require( "./content-stream" ).createWriteStream;


// ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- //
// ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- //


// Create a simple HTTP server so that we can aggregate incoming request content.
var httpServer = http.createServer(
	function handleHttpRequest( request, response ) {

		// Pipe the request into a ContentStream, which will aggregate the request
		// body and expose the content through a promise value.
		// --
		// NOTE: the ContentStream has a ".promise" property; but, as a convenience, it
		// also directly exposes ".then()", ".catch()", and ".finally()" methods which
		// are bound to the underlying promise.
		request
			.pipe( createContentStream() ) // <-- Returns stream, exposes .then().
			.on(
				"error",
				function handleErrorEvent( error ) {

					// NOTE: This is just here to demonstrate that I can listen for error
					// events directly on the stream (N possible events); or, I can use
					// the .catch() method (1 possible event); or, both.
					console.log( "Content error:", util.inspect( error ) );

				}
			)
			.then(
				function handleResolve( content ) {

					response.write( "CONTENT: " );
					response.write( content );
					response.write( "\n" );

				}
			)
			.catch(
				function handleReject( error ) {

					response.write( "ERROR: " );
					response.write( util.inspect( error ) );
					response.write( "\n" );

				}
			)
			.finally(
				function handleDone() {

					// No matter what happens, close the response.
					response.end( "Fin!" );

				}
			)
		;

	}
);

httpServer.listen( 8080 );

console.log( "Node server listening on port 8080." );