How to append to a file in Node?

Question

I am trying to append a string to a log file. However writeFile will erase the content each time before writing the string.

fs.writeFile(\'log.txt\'         


        

Answer 1

For occasional appends, you can use appendFile, which creates a new file handle each time it's called:

Asynchronously:

const fs = require('fs');

fs.appendFile('message.txt', 'data to append', function (err) {
  if (err) throw err;
  console.log('Saved!');
});

Synchronously:

const fs = require('fs');

fs.appendFileSync('message.txt', 'data to append');

But if you append repeatedly to the same file, it's much better to reuse the file handle.

Answer 2

My approach is rather special. I basically use the WriteStream solution but without actually 'closing' the fd by using stream.end(). Instead I use cork/uncork. This got the benefit of low RAM usage (if that matters to anyone) and I believe it's more safe to use for logging/recording (my original use case).

Following is a pretty simple example. Notice I just added a pseudo for loop for showcase -- in production code I am waiting for websocket messages.

var stream = fs.createWriteStream("log.txt", {flags:'a'});
for(true) {
  stream.cork();
  stream.write("some content to log");
  process.nextTick(() => stream.uncork());
}

uncork will flush the data to the file in the next tick.

In my scenario there are peaks of up to ~200 writes per second in various sizes. During night time however only a handful writes per minute are needed. The code is working super reliable even during peak times.

Answer 3

fd = fs.openSync(path.join(process.cwd(), 'log.txt'), 'a')
fs.writeSync(fd, 'contents to append')
fs.closeSync(fd)

Answer 4

If you want an easy and stress-free way to write logs line by line in a file, then I recommend fs-extra:

const os = require('os');
const fs = require('fs-extra');

const file = 'logfile.txt';
const options = {flag: 'a'};

async function writeToFile(text) {
  await fs.outputFile(file, `${text}${os.EOL}`, options);
}

writeToFile('First line');
writeToFile('Second line');
writeToFile('Third line');
writeToFile('Fourth line');
writeToFile('Fifth line');

Tested with Node v8.9.4.

Answer 5

Using fs.appendFile or fsPromises.appendFile are the fastest and the most robust options when you need to append something to a file.

In contrast to some of the answers suggested, if the file path is supplied to the appendFile function, It actually closes by itself. Only when you pass in a filehandle that you get by something like fs.open() you have to take care of closing it.

I tried it with over 50,000 lines in a file.

Examples :

(async () => {
  // using appendFile.
  const fsp = require('fs').promises;
  await fsp.appendFile(
    '/path/to/file', '\r\nHello world.'
  );

  // using apickfs; handles error and edge cases better.
  const apickFileStorage = require('apickfs');
  await apickFileStorage.writeLines(
    '/path/to/directory/', 'filename', 'Hello world.'
  );
})();

Ref: https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/7560
Example Execution: https://github.com/apickjs/apickFS/blob/master/writeLines.js

Answer 6

const inovioLogger = (logger = "") => {
    const log_file = fs.createWriteStream(__dirname + `/../../inoviopay-${new Date().toISOString().slice(0, 10)}.log`, { flags: 'a' });
    const log_stdout = process.stdout;
    log_file.write(logger + '\n');
}