# tar-stream
tar-stream is a streaming tar parser and generator and nothing else. It is streams2 and operates purely using streams which means you can easily extract/parse tarballs without ever hitting the file system.
Note that you still need to gunzip your data if you have a `.tar.gz`. We recommend using [gunzip-maybe](https://github.com/mafintosh/gunzip-maybe) in conjunction with this.
```
npm install tar-stream
```
[](http://travis-ci.org/mafintosh/tar-stream)
[](http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
## Usage
tar-stream exposes two streams, [pack](https://github.com/mafintosh/tar-stream#packing) which creates tarballs and [extract](https://github.com/mafintosh/tar-stream#extracting) which extracts tarballs. To [modify an existing tarball](https://github.com/mafintosh/tar-stream#modifying-existing-tarballs) use both.
It implementes USTAR with additional support for pax extended headers. It should be compatible with all popular tar distributions out there (gnutar, bsdtar etc)
## Related
If you want to pack/unpack directories on the file system check out [tar-fs](https://github.com/mafintosh/tar-fs) which provides file system bindings to this module.
## Packing
To create a pack stream use `tar.pack()` and call `pack.entry(header, [callback])` to add tar entries.
``` js
var tar = require('tar-stream')
var pack = tar.pack() // pack is a streams2 stream
// add a file called my-test.txt with the content "Hello World!"
pack.entry({ name: 'my-test.txt' }, 'Hello World!')
// add a file called my-stream-test.txt from a stream
var entry = pack.entry({ name: 'my-stream-test.txt', size: 11 }, function(err) {
// the stream was added
// no more entries
pack.finalize()
})
entry.write('hello')
entry.write(' ')
entry.write('world')
entry.end()
// pipe the pack stream somewhere
pack.pipe(process.stdout)
```
## Extracting
To extract a stream use `tar.extract()` and listen for `extract.on('entry', (header, stream, next) )`
``` js
var extract = tar.extract()
extract.on('entry', function(header, stream, next) {
// header is the tar header
// stream is the content body (might be an empty stream)
// call next when you are done with this entry
stream.on('end', function() {
next() // ready for next entry
})
stream.resume() // just auto drain the stream
})
extract.on('finish', function() {
// all entries read
})
pack.pipe(extract)
```
The tar archive is streamed sequentially, meaning you **must** drain each entry's stream as you get them or else the main extract stream will receive backpressure and stop reading.
## Headers
The header object using in `entry` should contain the following properties.
Most of these values can be found by stat'ing a file.
``` js
{
name: 'path/to/this/entry.txt',
size: 1314, // entry size. defaults to 0
mode: 0o644, // entry mode. defaults to to 0o755 for dirs and 0o644 otherwise
mtime: new Date(), // last modified date for entry. defaults to now.
type: 'file', // type of entry. defaults to file. can be:
// file | link | symlink | directory | block-device
// character-device | fifo | contiguous-file
linkname: 'path', // linked file name
uid: 0, // uid of entry owner. defaults to 0
gid: 0, // gid of entry owner. defaults to 0
uname: 'maf', // uname of entry owner. defaults to null
gname: 'staff', // gname of entry owner. defaults to null
devmajor: 0, // device major version. defaults to 0
devminor: 0 // device minor version. defaults to 0
}
```
## Modifying existing tarballs
Using tar-stream it is easy to rewrite paths / change modes etc in an existing tarball.
``` js
var extract = tar.extract()
var pack = tar.pack()
var path = require('path')
extract.on('entry', function(header, stream, callback) {
// let's prefix all names with 'tmp'
header.name = path.join('tmp', header.name)
// write the new entry to the pack stream
stream.pipe(pack.entry(header, callback))
})
extract.on('finish', function() {
// all entries done - lets finalize it
pack.finalize()
})
// pipe the old tarball to the extractor
oldTarballStream.pipe(extract)
// pipe the new tarball the another stream
pack.pipe(newTarballStream)
```
## Saving tarball to fs
``` js
var fs = require('fs')
var tar = require('tar-stream')
var pack = tar.pack() // pack is a streams2 stream
var path = 'YourTarBall.tar'
var yourTarball = fs.createWriteStream(path)
// add a file called YourFile.txt with the content "Hello World!"
pack.entry({name: 'YourFile.txt'}, 'Hello World!', function (err) {
if (err) throw err
pack.finalize()
})
// pipe the pack stream to your file
pack.pipe(yourTarball)
yourTarball.on('close', function () {
console.log(path + ' has been written')
fs.stat(path, function(err, stats) {
if (err) throw err
console.log(stats)
console.log('Got file info successfully!')
})
})
```
## Performance
[See tar-fs for a performance comparison with node-tar](https://github.com/mafintosh/tar-fs/blob/master/README.md#performance)
# License
MIT