Better streaming static file server with Range and conditional-GET support
Send is a library for streaming files from the file system as a http response supporting partial responses (Ranges), conditional-GET negotiation, high test coverage, and granular events which may be leveraged to take appropriate actions in your application or framework.
Looking to serve up entire folders mapped to URLs? Try serve-static.
$ npm install send
var send = require'send'
Create a new
SendStream for the given path to send to a
the Node.js HTTP request and the
path is a urlencoded path to send (urlencoded,
not the actual file-system path).
Set how "dotfiles" are treated when encountered. A dotfile is a file
or directory that begins with a dot ("."). Note this check is done on
the path itself without checking if the path actually exists on the
root is specified, only the dotfiles above the root are
checked (i.e. the root itself can be within a dotfile when when set
'allow'No special treatment for dotfiles.
'deny'Send a 403 for any request for a dotfile.
'ignore'Pretend like the dotfile does not exist and 404.
The default value is similar to
'ignore', with the exception that
this default will not ignore the files within a directory that begins
with a dot, for backward-compatibility.
Byte offset at which the stream ends, defaults to the length of the file
minus 1. The end is inclusive in the stream, meaning
end: 3 will include
the 4th byte in the stream.
Enable or disable etag generation, defaults to true.
If a given file doesn't exist, try appending one of the given extensions,
in the given order. By default, this is disabled (set to
example value that will serve extension-less HTML files:
This is skipped if the requested file already has an extension.
By default send supports "index.html" files, to disable this
false or to supply a new index pass a string or an array
in preferred order.
Enable or disable
Last-Modified header, defaults to true. Uses the file
system's last modified value.
Provide a max-age in milliseconds for http caching, defaults to 0. This can also be a string accepted by the ms module.
Serve files relative to
Byte offset at which the stream starts, defaults to 0. The start is inclusive,
start: 2 will include the 3rd byte in the stream.
SendStream is an event emitter and will emit the following events:
erroran error occurred
directorya directory was requested
filea file was requested
headersthe headers are about to be set on a file
(res, path, stat)
streamfile streaming has started
endstreaming has completed
pipe method is used to pipe the response into the Node.js HTTP response
send(req, path, options).pipe(res).
mime export is the global instance of of the
mime npm module.
This is used to configure the MIME types that are associated with file extensions as well as other options for how to resolve the MIME type of a file (like the default type to use for an unknown file extension).
By default when no
error listeners are present an automatic response will be
made, otherwise you have full control over the response, aka you may show a 5xx
It does not perform internal caching, you should use a reverse proxy cache such as Varnish for this, or those fancy things called CDNs. If your application is small enough that it would benefit from single-node memory caching, it's small enough that it does not need caching at all ;).
debug() instrumentation output export DEBUG:
$ DEBUG=send node app
$ npm install$ npm test
var http = require'http';var send = require'send';var app = httpcreateServersendreq requrlpiperes;listen3000;
var http = require'http';var send = require'send';// Default unknown types to text/plainsendmimedefault_type = 'text/plain';// Add a custom typesendmimedefine'application/x-my-type': 'x-mt' 'x-mtt';var app = httpcreateServersendreq requrlpiperes;listen3000;
var http = require'http';var send = require'send';var url = require'url';var app = httpcreateServer// your custom error-handling logic:resstatusCode = errstatus || 500;resenderrmessage;// your custom headers// serve all files for downloadressetHeader'Content-Disposition' 'attachment';// your custom directory handling logic:resstatusCode = 301;ressetHeader'Location' requrl + '/';resend'Redirecting to ' + requrl + '/';// transfer arbitrary files from within// /www/example.com/public/*sendreq urlparserequrlpathname root: '/www/example.com/public'on'error' erroron'directory' redirecton'headers' headerspiperes;listen3000;