strtok3

A promise based streaming tokenizer for Node.js and browsers.

The strtok3 module provides several methods for creating a tokenizer from various input sources. Designed for:

• Seamless support in streaming environments.
• Efficiently decode binary data, strings, and numbers.
• Reading predefined or custom tokens.
• Offering tokenizers for reading from files, streams or Uint8Arrays.

strtok3 can read from:

• Files, using a file path as input.
• Node.js streams.
• Buffer or Uint8Array.
• HTTP chunked transfer provided by @tokenizer/http.
• Amazon S3 chunks with @tokenizer/s3.

npm install strtok3

Starting with version 7, the module has migrated from CommonJS to pure ECMAScript Module (ESM). The distributed JavaScript codebase is compliant with the ECMAScript 2020 (11th Edition) standard.

[!NOTE] This module requires a Node.js ≥ 16 engine. It can also be used in a browser environment when bundled with a module bundler.

If you find this project useful and would like to support its development, consider sponsoring or contributing:

• Become a sponsor to Borewit

• Buy me a coffee:

  

Use one of the methods to instantiate an abstract tokenizer:

• fromFile¹
• fromStream¹
• fromWebStream
• fromBuffer

All methods return a Tokenizer, either directly or via a promise.

Creates a tokenizer from a local file.

function fromFile(sourceFilePath: string): Promise<FileTokenizer>

[!NOTE]

• Only available for Node.js engines
• fromFile automatically embeds file-information

Returns, via a promise, a tokenizer which can be used to parse a file.

import * as strtok3 from 'strtok3';
import * as Token from 'token-types';

(async () => {

  const tokenizer = await strtok3.fromFile("somefile.bin");
         try {
    const myNumber = await tokenizer.readToken(Token.UINT8);
    console.log(`My number: ${myNumber}`);
  } finally {
    tokenizer.close(); // Close the file
  }
})();

Creates a tokenizer from a Node.js readable stream.

function fromStream(stream: Readable, options?: ITokenizerOptions): Promise<ReadStreamTokenizer>

Returns a Promise providing a tokenizer.

[!NOTE]

• Only available for Node.js engines

Creates tokenizer from a WHATWG ReadableStream.

function fromWebStream(webStream: AnyWebByteStream, options?: ITokenizerOptions): ReadStreamTokenizer

Returns a Promise providing a tokenizer

import strtok3 from 'strtok3';
import * as Token from 'token-types';

strtok3.fromWebStream(readableStream).then(tokenizer => {
  return tokenizer.readToken(Token.UINT8).then(myUint8Number => {
    console.log(`My number: ${myUint8Number}`);
  });
});

Create a tokenizer from memory (Uint8Array).

function fromBuffer(uint8Array: Uint8Array, options?: ITokenizerOptions): BufferTokenizer

Returns a Promise providing a tokenizer.

import * as strtok3 from 'strtok3';

const tokenizer = strtok3.fromBuffer(buffer);

tokenizer.readToken(Token.UINT8).then(myUint8Number => {
  console.log(`My number: ${myUint8Number}`);
});

The tokenizer is an abstraction of a stream, file or Uint8Array, allowing reading or peeking from the stream. It can also be translated in chunked reads, as done in @tokenizer/http;

• Supports seeking within the stream using tokenizer.ignore().
• Offers peek methods to preview data without advancing the read pointer.
• Maintains the read position via tokenizer.position.

Read methods advance the stream pointer, while peek methods do not.

There are two kind of functions:

1. read methods: used to read a token of Buffer from the tokenizer. The position of the tokenizer-stream will advance with the size of the token.
2. peek methods: same as the read, but it will not advance the pointer. It allows to read (peek) ahead.

Read data from the tokenizer into provided "buffer" (Uint8Array). readBuffer(buffer, options?)

readBuffer(buffer: Uint8Array, options?: IReadChunkOptions): Promise<number>;

Return promise with number of bytes read. The number of bytes read maybe if less, mayBeLess flag was set.

Peek (read ahead), from tokenizer, into the buffer without advancing the stream pointer.

peekBuffer(uint8Array: Uint8Array, options?: IReadChunkOptions): Promise<number>;

Return value Promise<number> Promise with number of bytes read. The number of bytes read maybe if less, mayBeLess flag was set.

Read a token from the tokenizer-stream.

readToken<Value>(token: IGetToken<Value>, position: number = this.position): Promise<Value>

Return value Promise<number>. Promise with number of bytes read. The number of bytes read maybe if less, mayBeLess flag was set.

Peek a token from the tokenizer.

peekToken<Value>(token: IGetToken<Value>, position: number = this.position): Promise<Value>

Return a promise with the token value peeked from the tokenizer.

Peek a numeric token from the tokenizer.

readNumber(token: IToken<number>): Promise<number>

Returns a promise with the decoded numeric value from the tokenizer-stream.

Advance the offset pointer with the token number of bytes provided.

ignore(length: number): Promise<number>

Returns a promise with the decoded numeric value from the tokenizer-stream.

Clean up resources, such as closing a file pointer if applicable.

• fileInfo

  Optional attribute describing the file information, see IFileInfo

• position

  Pointer to the current position in the tokenizer stream. If a position is provided to a read or peek method, is should be, at least, equal or greater than this value.

Each attribute is optional:

Example usage:

  tokenizer.peekBuffer(buffer, {mayBeLess: true});

Provides optional metadata about the file being tokenized.

The token is basically a description what to read form the tokenizer-stream. A basic set of token types can be found here: token-types.

A token is something which implements the following interface:

export interface IGetToken<T> {

  /**
   * Length in bytes of encoded value
   */
  len: number;

  /**
   * Decode value from buffer at offset
   * @param buf Buffer to read the decoded value from
   * @param off Decode offset
   */
  get(buf: Uint8Array, off: number): T;
}

The tokenizer reads token.len bytes from the tokenizer-stream into a Buffer. The token.get will be called with the Buffer. token.get is responsible for conversion from the buffer to the desired output type.

To convert a Web-API readable stream into a Node.js readable stream, you can use readable-web-to-node-stream to convert one in another.

import { fromWebStream } strtok3 from 'strtok3';
import { ReadableWebToNodeStream } from 'readable-web-to-node-stream';

(async () => {

  const response = await fetch(url);
  const readableWebStream = response.body; // Web-API readable stream
  const webStream = new ReadableWebToNodeStream(readableWebStream); // convert to Node.js readable stream

  const tokenizer = fromWebStream(webStream); // And we now have tokenizer in a web environment
})();

The diagram below illustrates the primary dependencies of strtok3:

graph TD;
  S(strtok3)-->P(peek-readable)
  S(strtok3)-->TO("@tokenizer/token")

• peek-readable: Manages reading operations with peeking capabilities, allowing data to be previewed without advancing the read pointer.
• @tokenizer/token: Provides token definitions and utilities used by strtok3 for interpreting binary data.

(The MIT License)

Copyright (c) 2024 Borewit

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.