Node: adding a string as a file into a tar archive (without temporary files)

Question

I would like to make a tar archive in node. The canonical tar archiving example is based on a file stream:

fstream
  .Reader({path: 'src', type: "Directory"})
  .pipe(tar.Pack())
  .pipe(zlib.createGzip())
  .pipe(fstream.Writer("output.tar.gz"));

My data is actually in memory as a string, which I would like to write to the archive without having to make a temporary file in between.

Is there some way I can do this, e.g. maybe make an fstream out of a string?

How to create stream from string: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12755997/how-to-create-streams-from-string-in-node-js — Hector Correa, Feb 12 '14 at 14:35

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 01 '14 at 00:46

The tar-stream module can do this too:

var tar = require('tar-stream')    

var content = "whatever string you have"
var pack = tar.pack()
pack.entry({name: 'src', type: 'directory'})
pack.entry({name: 'src/someFile.txt'}, content) // file
pack.finalize()

tar-stream can also use streams as sources for file contents.

mikemaccana · Answer 2 · 2014-02-12T15:18:50.950

1

The tar-async module handles this quite simply, without needing to make fake streams:

var uploadArchive = new Tar({output: fs.createWriteStream('archive.tar')});
uploadArchive.append('somefile.txt', 'someString', function() {
  tape.close();
});

edited Feb 12 '14 at 15:18

answered Feb 12 '14 at 14:39

mikemaccana

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so how does one gzip the tar archive? – superhero Sep 21 '16 at 10:57

Node: adding a string as a file into a tar archive (without temporary files)

2 Answers2