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Read files from a dat:// website

Paul Frazee

Beaker’s DatArchive API provides tools for reading files and directories on the Dat network. Here are some examples.

readdir()

The readdir() method provides a list of files in a folder.

List the top-level files in a folder

var filenames = await archive.readdir('/')

List all files

var filepaths = await archive.readdir('/', {recursive: true})

List the metadata in the top-level directory

var fileinfos = await archive.readdir('/', {stat: true})

readFile()

Read a file’s content

The readFile() method reads the content of a file from the Dat network:

// read as string
var str = await archive.readFile('/index.html', 'utf8')

// read as arrayBuffer
var arrayBuffer = await archive.readFile('/img/logo/logo.png', 'binary')

// read as base64
var base64 = await archive.readFile('/img/logo/logo.png', 'base64')

// read as hex
var hex = await archive.readFile('/img/logo/logo.png', 'hex')

Reading a file over the network

Files in remote archives will be automatically downloaded when readFile() is called.

Timeouts

Sometimes the file will not be available, so the readFile() call will time out. You can adjust the timeout of all the methods in this guide using the timeout option:

archive.readFile('/index.html', {timeout: 15e3, encoding: 'utf8'})
archive.readdir('/', {timeout: 15e3})

stat()

Calculating file download progress with stat()

The stat() method provides metadata about a file or folder:

var info = await archive.stat('index.html')

The returned Stat object has the following structure:

Stat {
  isDirectory() // boolean
  isFile() // boolean

  // files only:
  size // number (bytes)
  blocks // number (number of data blocks in the metadata)
  downloaded // number (number of blocks downloaded, if a remote archive)
  mtime // Date (last modified time)
  ctime // Date (creation time)
}

You can calculate how much of a file has been downloaded using the data provided in the Stat object:

var st = await archive.stat('index.html')
var percentDownloaded = st.downloaded / st.blocks
var bytesDownloaded = st.size * percentDownloaded

Calculating folder download progress with stat()

You can calculate the download progress of a folder using the recursive stat readdir() call. The process is similar to calculating a single file’s download progress, but it requires some aggregation:

var sts = await archive.readdir('/', {recursive: true, stat: true})
var blocks = 0, downloaded = 0, bytes = 0

for (var st of sts) {
  bytes += st.stat.bytes
  blocks += st.stat.blocks
  downloaded += st.stat.downloaded
}

var percentDownloaded = downloaded / blocks
var bytesDownloaded = size * percentDownloaded

Further reading