Node.js - read file as text (UTF-8)

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Created by:

Vanessa-Drake

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In this article, we would like to show you how to read file as text using Node.js.

Quick solution:

const fs = require('fs');

const text = fs.readFileSync('/path/to/file.txt', 'utf-8');

or:

const fs = require('fs');

fs.readFile('/path/to/file.txt', 'utf-8', (error, text) => {
    // Something here ...
});

Note: to know different text encoding check this article.

Practical example

In this section you can find two examples that shows how to read example file.txt file as text. First example reads file.txt file synchronously and second one asynchronously.

Example file.txt file:

Line 1
Line 2
Line 3

Sync mode

Example index.js file:

const fs = require('fs');

try {
    const text = fs.readFileSync('file.txt', 'utf-8');
    console.log(text);
} catch (error) {
    console.error(text);
}

Output:

Line 1
Line 2
Line 3

Async mode

Example index.js file:

const fs = require('fs');

fs.readFile('file.txt', 'utf-8', (error, text) => {
    if (error) {
        console.error(error);  // or `throw error;`
    } else {
        console.log(text);
    }
});

Output: