--- layout: guide ---

## cockpit.js: File Access cockpit.js: File Access — Reading, writing, and watching files. |

## Synopsis

The `cockpit.file` API lets you read, write, and watch regular files in their entirety. It cannot efficiently do random access in a big file or read non-regular files such as `/dev/random`.

    file = cockpit.file(path,
                        { syntax: syntax_object,
                          binary: boolean,
                          max_read_size: int,
                          superuser: string,
                        })

    promise = file.read()
    promise
        .then((content, tag) => { ... })
        .catch(error => { ... })

    promise = file.replace(content, [ expected_tag ])
    promise
        .then(new_tag => { ... })
        .catch(error => { ... })

    promise = file.modify(callback, [ initial_content, initial_tag ]
    promise
        .then((new_content, new_tag) => { ... })
        .catch(error => { ... })

    file.watch((content, tag, [error]) => { }, [ { read: boolean } ])

    file.close()

## Simple reading and writing

You can read a file with code like this:

    cockpit.file("/path/to/file").read()
        .then((content, tag) => {
            ...
        })
        .catch(error => {
            ...
        });

It is recommended to use absolute paths. Relative paths are resolved against `/`. To work with the current user's files cockpit.user() can be used to get the user's home directory.

The `read()` method returns a Promise.

When successful, the promise will be resolved with the content of the file. Unless you specify options to change this (see below), the file is assumed to be text in the UTF-8 encoding, and `content` will be a string.

The tag that is passed to the `then()` callback is a short string that is associated with the file and changes whenever the content of the file changes. It is meant to be used with `replace()`.

It is not an error when the file does not exist. In this case, the `then()` callback will be called with a `null` value for `content` and `tag` is `"-"`.

The `superuser` option can be used the same way as described in the cockpit.channel() to provide a different access level to the file.

You can use the `max_read_size` option to limit the amount of data that is read. If the file is larger than the given number of bytes, no data is read and the channel is closed with problem code `too-large`. The default limit is 16 MiB. The limit can be completely removed by setting it to -1.

To write to a file, use code like this:

    cockpit.file("/path/to/file").replace("my new content\n")
        .then(tag => {
            ...
        })
        .catch(error => {
            ...
        });

The `replace()` method returns a Promise.

When the promise is resolved, the file has been atomically replaced (via the `rename()` syscall) with the new content. As with `read()`, by default the new content is a string and will be written to the file as UTF-8. The returned tag corresponds to the new content of the file.

When the promise is rejected because of an error, the file or its meta data has not been changed in any way.

As a special case, passing the value `null` to `replace()` will remove the file.

The `replace()` method can also check for conflicting changes to a file. You can pass a tag (as returned by `read()` or `replace()`) to `replace()`, and the file will only be replaced if it still has the given tag. If the tag of the file has changed, `replace()` will fail with an error object that has `error.problem == "change-conflict"`. See `modify()` below for a convenient way to achieve transactional updates to a file.

## File format

By default, a file is assumed to be text encoded in UTF-8, and the `read()` and `replace()` functions use strings to represent the content.

By specifying the `syntax.parser()` and `syntax.stringify()` options, you can cause `read()` to parse the content before passing it back to you, and `replace()` to unparse it before writing.

The main idea is to be able to write `{ syntax: JSON }`, of course, but you can easily pass in individual functions or make your own parser/unparser object:

    cockpit.file("/path/to/file.json", { syntax: JSON })

    var syntax_object = {
        parse:     my_parser,
        stringify: my_unparser
    };

    cockpit.file("/path/to/file", { syntax: syntax_object })

Any exceptions thrown by the `parse()` and `stringify()` functions are caught and reported as read or write errors.

The `null` value that is used to represent the content of a non-existing file (see "Simple reading and writing", above) is not passed through the `parse()` and `stringify()` functions.

## Binary files

By default the content of the file is assumed to be text encoded as UTF-8 and it can not contain zero bytes. The content is represented as a JavaScript string with `read()`, `replace()`, etc. By setting the `binary` option to true when creating the proxy, no assumptions are placed on the content, and it is represented as a `Uint8Array` in JavaScript.

## Atomic modifications

Use `modify()` to modify the content of the file safely. A call to `modify()` will read the content of the file, call `callback` on the content, and then replace the content of the file with the return value of the callback.

The `modify()` method uses the `read()` and `replace()` methods internally in the obvious way. Thus, the `syntax.parse()` and `syntax.stringify()` options work as expected, `null` represents a non-existing file, and the watch callbacks are fired.

It will do this one or more times, until no other conflicting changes have been made to the file between reading and replacing it.

The callback is called like this

    new_content = callback (old_content)

The callback is allowed to mutate `old_content`, but note that this will also mutate the objects that are passed to the watch callbacks. Returning `undefined` from the proxy is the same as returning `old_content`.

The `modify()` method returns a Promise.

The promise will be resolved with the new content and its tag, like so

    function shout(old_content) {
        return old_content.toUpperCase();
    }

    cockpit.file("/path/to/file").modify(shout)
        .then((content, tag) => {
            ...
        })
        .catch(error => {
            ...
        });

If you have cached the last content and tag results of the `read()` or `modify()` method, or the last values passed to a watch callback, you can pass them to `modify()` as the second and third argument. In this case, `modify()` will skip the initial read and start with the given values.

## Change notifications

Calling `watch()` will start monitoring the file for external changes.

    handle = file.watch(callback);

    handle_no_read = file.watch(callback, { read: false });

Whenever a change occurs, the `callback()` is called with the new content and tag of the file. This might happen because of external changes, but also as part of calls to `read()`, `replace()`, and `modify()`.

When a read error occurs, the `callback()` is called with an error as a third argument. Write errors are not reported via the watch callback.

Calling `watch()` will also automatically call `read()` to get the initial content of the file. Thus, you normally don't need to call `read()` at all when using `watch()`.

To disable the automatic reading, e.g. for large files or unreadable file system objects, set the `read` option to `false`. The first `content` argument of the callback will then always be `null`.

To free the resources used for monitoring, call `handle.remove()`.

## file.path

A string containing the path that was passed to the `cockpit.file()` method.

## Closing

Call the `close()` method on a file proxy to cancel all ongoing operations, such as reading, writing, and monitoring. The proxy should not be used after closing it.