Class WriteStream

The writable.cork() method forces all written data to be buffered in memory. The buffered data will be flushed when either the uncork or end methods are called.

The primary intent of writable.cork() is to accommodate a situation in which several small chunks are written to the stream in rapid succession. Instead of immediately forwarding them to the underlying destination, writable.cork()buffers all the chunks until writable.uncork() is called, which will pass them all to writable._writev(), if present. This prevents a head-of-line blocking situation where data is being buffered while waiting for the first small chunk to be processed. However, use of writable.cork() without implementingwritable._writev() may have an adverse effect on throughput.

See also: writable.uncork(), writable._writev().

Since

v0.11.2

Destroy the stream. Optionally emit an 'error' event, and emit a 'close'event (unless emitClose is set to false). After this call, the writable stream has ended and subsequent calls to write() or end() will result in an ERR_STREAM_DESTROYED error. This is a destructive and immediate way to destroy a stream. Previous calls towrite() may not have drained, and may trigger an ERR_STREAM_DESTROYED error. Use end() instead of destroy if data should flush before close, or wait for the 'drain' event before destroying the stream.

Once destroy() has been called any further calls will be a no-op and no further errors except from _destroy() may be emitted as 'error'.

Implementors should not override this method, but instead implement writable._destroy().

Since

v8.0.0

Synchronously calls each of the listeners registered for the event namedeventName, in the order they were registered, passing the supplied arguments to each.

Returns true if the event had listeners, false otherwise.

const EventEmitter = require('events');
const myEmitter = new EventEmitter();

// First listener
myEmitter.on('event', function firstListener() {
  console.log('Helloooo! first listener');
});
// Second listener
myEmitter.on('event', function secondListener(arg1, arg2) {
  console.log(`event with parameters ${arg1}, ${arg2} in second listener`);
});
// Third listener
myEmitter.on('event', function thirdListener(...args) {
  const parameters = args.join(', ');
  console.log(`event with parameters ${parameters} in third listener`);
});

console.log(myEmitter.listeners('event'));

myEmitter.emit('event', 1, 2, 3, 4, 5);

// Prints:
// [
//   [Function: firstListener],
//   [Function: secondListener],
//   [Function: thirdListener]
// ]
// Helloooo! first listener
// event with parameters 1, 2 in second listener
// event with parameters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in third listener

Since

v0.1.26

Calling the writable.end() method signals that no more data will be written to the Writable. The optional chunk and encoding arguments allow one final additional chunk of data to be written immediately before closing the stream.

Calling the write method after calling end will raise an error.

// Write 'hello, ' and then end with 'world!'.
const fs = require('fs');
const file = fs.createWriteStream('example.txt');
file.write('hello, ');
file.end('world!');
// Writing more now is not allowed!

Since

v0.9.4

Returns an array listing the events for which the emitter has registered listeners. The values in the array are strings or Symbols.

const EventEmitter = require('events');
const myEE = new EventEmitter();
myEE.on('foo', () => {});
myEE.on('bar', () => {});

const sym = Symbol('symbol');
myEE.on(sym, () => {});

console.log(myEE.eventNames());
// Prints: [ 'foo', 'bar', Symbol(symbol) ]

Since

v6.0.0

Returns the current max listener value for the EventEmitter which is either set by emitter.setMaxListeners(n) or defaults to defaultMaxListeners.

Since

v1.0.0

Returns the number of listeners listening to the event named eventName.

Since

v3.2.0

Returns a copy of the array of listeners for the event named eventName.

server.on('connection', (stream) => {
  console.log('someone connected!');
});
console.log(util.inspect(server.listeners('connection')));
// Prints: [ [Function] ]

Since

v0.1.26

Alias for emitter.removeListener().

Since

v10.0.0

Returns a copy of the array of listeners for the event named eventName, including any wrappers (such as those created by .once()).

const emitter = new EventEmitter();
emitter.once('log', () => console.log('log once'));

// Returns a new Array with a function `onceWrapper` which has a property
// `listener` which contains the original listener bound above
const listeners = emitter.rawListeners('log');
const logFnWrapper = listeners[0];

// Logs "log once" to the console and does not unbind the `once` event
logFnWrapper.listener();

// Logs "log once" to the console and removes the listener
logFnWrapper();

emitter.on('log', () => console.log('log persistently'));
// Will return a new Array with a single function bound by `.on()` above
const newListeners = emitter.rawListeners('log');

// Logs "log persistently" twice
newListeners[0]();
emitter.emit('log');

Since

v9.4.0

Removes all listeners, or those of the specified eventName.

It is bad practice to remove listeners added elsewhere in the code, particularly when the EventEmitter instance was created by some other component or module (e.g. sockets or file streams).

Returns a reference to the EventEmitter, so that calls can be chained.

Since

v0.1.26

Removes the specified listener from the listener array for the event namedeventName.

const callback = (stream) => {
  console.log('someone connected!');
};
server.on('connection', callback);
// ...
server.removeListener('connection', callback);

removeListener() will remove, at most, one instance of a listener from the listener array. If any single listener has been added multiple times to the listener array for the specified eventName, then removeListener() must be called multiple times to remove each instance.

Once an event is emitted, all listeners attached to it at the time of emitting are called in order. This implies that anyremoveListener() or removeAllListeners() calls after emitting and before the last listener finishes execution will not remove them fromemit() in progress. Subsequent events behave as expected.

const myEmitter = new MyEmitter();

const callbackA = () => {
  console.log('A');
  myEmitter.removeListener('event', callbackB);
};

const callbackB = () => {
  console.log('B');
};

myEmitter.on('event', callbackA);

myEmitter.on('event', callbackB);

// callbackA removes listener callbackB but it will still be called.
// Internal listener array at time of emit [callbackA, callbackB]
myEmitter.emit('event');
// Prints:
//   A
//   B

// callbackB is now removed.
// Internal listener array [callbackA]
myEmitter.emit('event');
// Prints:
//   A

Because listeners are managed using an internal array, calling this will change the position indices of any listener registered after the listener being removed. This will not impact the order in which listeners are called, but it means that any copies of the listener array as returned by the emitter.listeners() method will need to be recreated.

When a single function has been added as a handler multiple times for a single event (as in the example below), removeListener() will remove the most recently added instance. In the example the once('ping')listener is removed:

const ee = new EventEmitter();

function pong() {
  console.log('pong');
}

ee.on('ping', pong);
ee.once('ping', pong);
ee.removeListener('ping', pong);

ee.emit('ping');
ee.emit('ping');

Returns a reference to the EventEmitter, so that calls can be chained.

Since

v0.1.26

The writable.setDefaultEncoding() method sets the default encoding for a Writable stream.

Since

v0.11.15

By default EventEmitters will print a warning if more than 10 listeners are added for a particular event. This is a useful default that helps finding memory leaks. The emitter.setMaxListeners() method allows the limit to be modified for this specific EventEmitter instance. The value can be set toInfinity (or 0) to indicate an unlimited number of listeners.

Returns a reference to the EventEmitter, so that calls can be chained.

Since

v0.3.5

The writable.uncork() method flushes all data buffered since cork was called.

When using writable.cork() and writable.uncork() to manage the buffering of writes to a stream, defer calls to writable.uncork() usingprocess.nextTick(). Doing so allows batching of allwritable.write() calls that occur within a given Node.js event loop phase.

stream.cork();
stream.write('some ');
stream.write('data ');
process.nextTick(() => stream.uncork());

If the writable.cork() method is called multiple times on a stream, the same number of calls to writable.uncork() must be called to flush the buffered data.

stream.cork();
stream.write('some ');
stream.cork();
stream.write('data ');
process.nextTick(() => {
  stream.uncork();
  // The data will not be flushed until uncork() is called a second time.
  stream.uncork();
});

See also: writable.cork().

Since

v0.11.2

The writable.write() method writes some data to the stream, and calls the supplied callback once the data has been fully handled. If an error occurs, the callback will be called with the error as its first argument. The callback is called asynchronously and before 'error' is emitted.

The return value is true if the internal buffer is less than thehighWaterMark configured when the stream was created after admitting chunk. If false is returned, further attempts to write data to the stream should stop until the 'drain' event is emitted.

While a stream is not draining, calls to write() will buffer chunk, and return false. Once all currently buffered chunks are drained (accepted for delivery by the operating system), the 'drain' event will be emitted. Once write() returns false, do not write more chunks until the 'drain' event is emitted. While calling write() on a stream that is not draining is allowed, Node.js will buffer all written chunks until maximum memory usage occurs, at which point it will abort unconditionally. Even before it aborts, high memory usage will cause poor garbage collector performance and high RSS (which is not typically released back to the system, even after the memory is no longer required). Since TCP sockets may never drain if the remote peer does not read the data, writing a socket that is not draining may lead to a remotely exploitable vulnerability.

Writing data while the stream is not draining is particularly problematic for a Transform, because the Transform streams are paused by default until they are piped or a 'data' or 'readable' event handler is added.

If the data to be written can be generated or fetched on demand, it is recommended to encapsulate the logic into a Readable and use pipe. However, if calling write() is preferred, it is possible to respect backpressure and avoid memory issues using the 'drain' event:

function write(data, cb) {
  if (!stream.write(data)) {
    stream.once('drain', cb);
  } else {
    process.nextTick(cb);
  }
}

// Wait for cb to be called before doing any other write.
write('hello', () => {
  console.log('Write completed, do more writes now.');
});

A Writable stream in object mode will always ignore the encoding argument.

Since

v0.9.4

Returns

false if the stream wishes for the calling code to wait for the 'drain' event to be emitted before continuing to write additional data; otherwise true.

A utility method for creating a Writable from a web WritableStream.

Since

v17.0.0

Returns a copy of the array of listeners for the event named eventName.

For EventEmitters this behaves exactly the same as calling .listeners on the emitter.

For EventTargets this is the only way to get the event listeners for the event target. This is useful for debugging and diagnostic purposes.

const { getEventListeners, EventEmitter } = require('events');

{
  const ee = new EventEmitter();
  const listener = () => console.log('Events are fun');
  ee.on('foo', listener);
  getEventListeners(ee, 'foo'); // [listener]
}
{
  const et = new EventTarget();
  const listener = () => console.log('Events are fun');
  et.addEventListener('foo', listener);
  getEventListeners(et, 'foo'); // [listener]
}

Since

v15.2.0, v14.17.0

A class method that returns the number of listeners for the given eventNameregistered on the given emitter.

const { EventEmitter, listenerCount } = require('events');
const myEmitter = new EventEmitter();
myEmitter.on('event', () => {});
myEmitter.on('event', () => {});
console.log(listenerCount(myEmitter, 'event'));
// Prints: 2

Since

v0.9.12

Deprecated

Since v3.2.0 - Use listenerCount instead.

const { on, EventEmitter } = require('events');

(async () => {
  const ee = new EventEmitter();

  // Emit later on
  process.nextTick(() => {
    ee.emit('foo', 'bar');
    ee.emit('foo', 42);
  });

  for await (const event of on(ee, 'foo')) {
    // The execution of this inner block is synchronous and it
    // processes one event at a time (even with await). Do not use
    // if concurrent execution is required.
    console.log(event); // prints ['bar'] [42]
  }
  // Unreachable here
})();

Returns an AsyncIterator that iterates eventName events. It will throw if the EventEmitter emits 'error'. It removes all listeners when exiting the loop. The value returned by each iteration is an array composed of the emitted event arguments.

An AbortSignal can be used to cancel waiting on events:

const { on, EventEmitter } = require('events');
const ac = new AbortController();

(async () => {
  const ee = new EventEmitter();

  // Emit later on
  process.nextTick(() => {
    ee.emit('foo', 'bar');
    ee.emit('foo', 42);
  });

  for await (const event of on(ee, 'foo', { signal: ac.signal })) {
    // The execution of this inner block is synchronous and it
    // processes one event at a time (even with await). Do not use
    // if concurrent execution is required.
    console.log(event); // prints ['bar'] [42]
  }
  // Unreachable here
})();

process.nextTick(() => ac.abort());

Since

v13.6.0, v12.16.0

Returns

that iterates eventName events emitted by the emitter

Creates a Promise that is fulfilled when the EventEmitter emits the given event or that is rejected if the EventEmitter emits 'error' while waiting. The Promise will resolve with an array of all the arguments emitted to the given event.

This method is intentionally generic and works with the web platform EventTarget interface, which has no special'error' event semantics and does not listen to the 'error' event.

const { once, EventEmitter } = require('events');

async function run() {
  const ee = new EventEmitter();

  process.nextTick(() => {
    ee.emit('myevent', 42);
  });

  const [value] = await once(ee, 'myevent');
  console.log(value);

  const err = new Error('kaboom');
  process.nextTick(() => {
    ee.emit('error', err);
  });

  try {
    await once(ee, 'myevent');
  } catch (err) {
    console.log('error happened', err);
  }
}

run();

The special handling of the 'error' event is only used when events.once()is used to wait for another event. If events.once() is used to wait for the 'error' event itself, then it is treated as any other kind of event without special handling:

const { EventEmitter, once } = require('events');

const ee = new EventEmitter();

once(ee, 'error')
  .then(([err]) => console.log('ok', err.message))
  .catch((err) => console.log('error', err.message));

ee.emit('error', new Error('boom'));

// Prints: ok boom

An AbortSignal can be used to cancel waiting for the event:

const { EventEmitter, once } = require('events');

const ee = new EventEmitter();
const ac = new AbortController();

async function foo(emitter, event, signal) {
  try {
    await once(emitter, event, { signal });
    console.log('event emitted!');
  } catch (error) {
    if (error.name === 'AbortError') {
      console.error('Waiting for the event was canceled!');
    } else {
      console.error('There was an error', error.message);
    }
  }
}

foo(ee, 'foo', ac.signal);
ac.abort(); // Abort waiting for the event
ee.emit('foo'); // Prints: Waiting for the event was canceled!

Since

v11.13.0, v10.16.0

const {
  setMaxListeners,
  EventEmitter
} = require('events');

const target = new EventTarget();
const emitter = new EventEmitter();

setMaxListeners(5, target, emitter);

Since

v15.4.0

A utility method for creating a web WritableStream from a Writable.

Since

v17.0.0