Streams

Read 128 characters at a time from the file:

IOStreams.path("example.csv").reader do |io|
  while (data = io.read(128))
    p data 
  end
end

Read one line at a time from the file:

IOStreams.path("example.csv").each do |line|
  puts line
end

Display each row from the csv file as an array:

IOStreams.path("example.csv").each(:array) do |array|
  p array
end

Display each row from the csv file as a hash, where the first line in the CSV file is the header:

IOStreams.path("example.csv").each(:hash) do |hash|
  p hash
end

Write data to the file.

IOStreams.path("abc.txt").writer do |io|
  io << "This"
  io << " is "
  io << " one line\n"
end

Write lines to the file. By adding :line to writer, each write appends a new line character.

IOStreams.path("example.csv").writer(:line) do |file|
  file << "these"
  file << "are"
  file << "all"
  file << "separate"
  file << "lines"
end

Write an array (row) at a time to the file. Each array is converted to csv before being compressed with zip.

IOStreams.path("example.csv").writer(:array) do |io|
  io << ["name", "address", "zip_code"]
  io << ["Jack", "There", "1234"]
  io << ["Joe", "Over There somewhere", 1234]
end

Write a hash (record) at a time to the file. Each hash is converted to csv before being compressed with zip. The header row is extracted from the first hash write that is performed.

IOStreams.path("example.csv").writer(:hash) do |stream|
  stream << {name: "Jack", address: "There", zip_code: 1234}
  stream << {zip_code: 1234, address: "Over There somewhere", name: "Joe"}
end

Notes

Any additional keys supplied during subsequent write operations will be ignored since the header row has already been written to the file.
The order of the header and values is determined by the order of the keys supplied during the first write.
The order of keys in the subsequent writes does not matter.

Stream into an in-memory buffer, useful for testing. The original filename still needs to be supplied so that the streaming pipeline can still be inferred.

io = StringIO.new
IOStreams.stream(io, file_name: "example.csv.gz").writer(:hash) do |stream|
  stream << {name: "Jack", address: "There", zip_code: 1234}
  stream << {name: "Joe", zip_code: 1234, address: "Over There somewhere"}
end
puts io.string

Read a CSV file and write the output to an encrypted file in JSON format.

IOStreams.path("sample.json.enc").writer(:hash) do |output|
  IOStreams.path("sample.csv").each(:hash) do |record|
    output << record
  end
end

Read a zip file hosted on a HTTP Web Server, returning each row as a hash:

IOStreams.
  path("https://www5.fdic.gov/idasp/Offices2.zip").
  option(:zip, entry_file_name: "OFFICES2_ALL.CSV").
  each(:hash) do |row|
    p row
  end

Notes:

By default IOStreams will read the first file in the zip file.
To choose a specific file name within the zip file, supply: entry_file_name

Notes

Due to the nature of Zip, both its Reader and Writer methods will create a temp file when reading from or writing to a stream. Recommended to use Gzip over Zip since it can be streamed without requiring temp files.
Zip becomes exponentially slower with very large files, especially files that exceed 4GB when uncompressed. Highly recommend using GZip for large files.

Pipeline

If the file is compressed, the pipeline will infer the necessary streams that need to be applied to it:

path = IOStreams.path("somewhere/example.csv.gz")
# => #<IOStreams::Paths::File:somewhere/example.csv.gz pipeline={:gz=>{}}>
 
path.pipeline
# => {:gz=>{}} 

The pipeline above includes :gz to indicate that the file should compressed / decompressed with GZip.

Option

Each path supports several options which can be supplied using the option method.

Set the options for a stream in the pipeline for this file. Each stream can only be applied once and is uniquely identified by its symbolic name.

To see the pipeline of streams that IOStreams would infer:

IOStreams.path("example.pgp").pipeline
# => {:pgp=>{}}
 
IOStreams.path("example.gz").pipeline
# => {:gz=>{}}
 
IOStreams.path("example.gz.pgp").pipeline
# => {:gz=>{}, :pgp=>{}}

If the relevant stream is not found for this file it is ignored. For example, if the file does not have a pgp extension then the pgp option is ignored.

IOStreams.path("example.csv.gz").
  option(:pgp, passphrase: "receiver_passphrase").
  read

This is great way to pass in stream specific options for when they are required, and to still support paths that do not use that stream. For example, the same code can support pgp encrypted, Symmetric Encryption encrypted, and plain text files.

IOStreams.path("example.csv.enc").
  option(:pgp, passphrase: "receiver_passphrase").
  read

To see the what value was previously set for a particular option:

path = IOStreams.path("example.pgp")
path.option(:pgp, passphrase: "receiver_passphrase")

path.setting(:pgp)
# => {:passphrase=>"receiver_passphrase"}

Stream

The stream method stops IOStreams from inferring the streams for this path and only uses the specified streams.

For example when using a filename that does not have the necessary file extensions. In this case the file was compressed with Zip, so tell IOStreams to unzip it:

path = IOStreams.path("tempfile2527")
path.stream(:zip)
path.read

The above example could also be written as:

IOStreams.path("tempfile2527").
  stream(:zip).
  read

Multiple streams can also be specified:

IOStreams.path("tempfile2527").
  stream(:zip).
  stream(:pgp, passphrase: "receiver_passphrase").
  read

Now that IOStreams is not inferring the pipeline from the filename, we can still see the above streams:

IOStreams.path("tempfile2527").
  stream(:zip).
  stream(:pgp, passphrase: "receiver_passphrase").
  pipeline
# => {:zip=>{}, :pgp=>{:passphrase=>"receiver_passphrase"}}

In this example the file contains JSON data that was compressed with GZip, and since we want to read each row as a hash:

IOStreams.path("tempfile2527").
  stream(:zip).
  each(:hash, format: :json) do |row|
    p row
  end

Alternatively if the original file name is available it can also be supplied allowing IOStreams to infer the above streams:

IOStreams.path("tempfile2527", original_file_name: "file.json.gz").
  each(:hash) do |row|
    p row
  end

To see the what value was previously set for a particular stream:

path = IOStreams.path("tempfile2527")
path.stream(:zip)
path.stream(:pgp, passphrase: "receiver_passphrase")

path.setting(:pgp)
# => {:passphrase=>"receiver_passphrase"}

To ensure no streams are inferred or applied use stream :none

path = IOStreams.path("file.zip")
path.stream(:none)
path.read

IOStreams

Making changes to file formats, compression, encryption, or storage mechanism transparent.

Streams

Notes

Pipeline

Option

Stream