Read a text file into an Array using JavaScript

Read a text file into an Array using JavaScript #

Use the fs.readFileSync() method to read a text file into an array in JavaScript, e.g. const contents = readFileSync(filename, 'utf-8').split('\n'). The method will return the contents of the file, which we can split on each newline character to get an array of strings.

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// 👇️ if using ES6 Imports uncomment line below
// import {readFileSync, promises as fsPromises} from 'fs';
const {readFileSync, promises: fsPromises} = require('fs');

// ✅ read file SYNCHRONOUSLY
function syncReadFile(filename) {
  const contents = readFileSync(filename, 'utf-8');

  const arr = contents.split(/\r?\n/);

  console.log(arr); // 👉️ ['One', 'Two', 'Three', 'Four']

  return arr;
}

syncReadFile('./example.txt');

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

// ✅ read file ASYNCHRONOUSLY
async function asyncReadFile(filename) {
  try {
    const contents = await fsPromises.readFile(filename, 'utf-8');

    const arr = contents.split(/\r?\n/);

    console.log(arr); // 👉️ ['One', 'Two', 'Three', 'Four']

    return arr;
  } catch (err) {
    console.log(err);
  }
}

asyncReadFile('./example.txt');

The function from the first example reads the contents of a file synchronously.

The fs.readFileSync method takes the path to the file as the first parameter and the encoding as the second.

The method returns the contents of the provided path.

We used the String.split method to split the contents on each newline character.

We passed a regular expression to the split() method.

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const arr = contents.split(/\r?\n/);

The forward slashes / / mark the beginning and end of the regular expression.

For example, Windows uses \r\n as an end of line character, whereas \n is the default in Unix.

The question mark ? matches the preceding item (\r) 0 or 1 times. In other words, the \r might be there, or it might not be there.

The split() method returns an array containing the substrings (each line) as elements.

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One
Two
Three
Four

The directory structure in the example assumes that the index.js file and the example.txt file are located in the same folder and our terminal is also in that folder.

Alternatively, you could use the fsPromises object to read a file asynchronously.

To read a text file into an array:

1. Use the fsPromises.readFile() method to read the file's contents.
2. Await the promise that the method returns.
3. Use the String.split() method to split the string into an array of substrings.

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// 👇️ if using ES6 Imports uncomment line below
// import {readFileSync, promises as fsPromises} from 'fs';
const {readFileSync, promises: fsPromises} = require('fs');

// ✅ read file ASYNCHRONOUSLY
async function asyncReadFile(filename) {
  try {
    const contents = await fsPromises.readFile(filename, 'utf-8');

    const arr = contents.split(/\r?\n/);

    console.log(arr); // 👉️ ['One', 'Two', 'Three', 'Four']

    return arr;
  } catch (err) {
    console.log(err);
  }
}

asyncReadFile('./example.txt');

The fsPromises.readFile() method asynchronously reads the contents of the provided file.

The method returns a promise that fulfills with the contents of the file, so we either have to await it or use the .then() method on it to get the resolved string.

To get an array of the file's contents, we have to call the split() method on the resolved string.