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catw

concatenate file globs, watching for changes

This module is just like the cat command, but with watching!

example

#!/usr/bin/env node

var catw = require('catw');
var fs = require('fs');

catw('*.txt', function (stream) {
    var w = stream.pipe(fs.createWriteStream('/tmp/bundle.txt'));
    w.on('close', function () { console.log('wrote to /tmp/bundle.txt') });
});

If we run the program in a directory with files a.txt and b.txt, the bundle.txt output will be both files concatenated together (in string-order by filename):

beep
boop

If we edit a.txt to be "BEEP" instead of "beep", the bundle.txt is now:

BEEP
boop

and then if we add a third file c.txt with the contents "!!!", the output is now:

BEEP
boop
!!!

We can even delete files. If we delete b.txt, the output is now:

BEEP
!!!

If we add a new file called bloop.txt with contents "BLOOP", the bundle.txt output is now:

BEEP
BLOOP
!!!

because the glob expansions of directories are sorted before concatenating.

usage

There is a command-line catw command that ships with this package.

usage: catw {OPTIONS} [FILES...] -o OUTFILE

  If FILES is "-", read from stdin.
  If there is no OUTFILE, write to stdout and exit without watching.

  OPTIONS:

    -w, --watch      Watch for changes.
                     Default: true except when writing to stdout.
 
    -c, --command    Execute a transform command for file before concatenating.
                     The env var $FILE will be set for each file path.
 
    -t, --transform  Transform each file using a module.

    -v, --verbose    Print the number of bytes written whenever a file changes.

    -h, --help       Print this help message.

Make sure to escape the globs that you want `catw` to watch so your shell won't
expand them.

methods

var catw = require('catw')

var cat = catw(patterns, opts={}, cb)

Create a new cat to concatenate patterns, an array of strings or a single string and watch each of the patterns for changes: new files, deleted files, and file updates.

It opts.watch is false, don't watch for changes, only concatenate once.

You can pass in a opts.transform(file) function that returns a transform stream to modify file contents before the contents are written to the bundle.

If specified, cb(stream) sets up a listener on the 'stream' event.

cat.close()

Stop listening for updates to the patterns.

events

cat.on('stream', function (stream) {})

Each time a file matched by a pattern changes or there is a new or deleted file matched by a pattern, this event fires with a stream that will output the concatenated file contents.