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https://github.com/jprichardson/electron-ipc-stream

Duplex stream that runs over Electron's IPC
https://github.com/jprichardson/electron-ipc-stream

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Duplex stream that runs over Electron's IPC

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electron-ipc-stream

===================



Duplex stream that run over [Electron's IPC](https://github.com/atom/electron/tree/master/docs) mechanism.



Why?

---



This allows you to use any Node.js stream readable/writable and easily communicate between your

main/renderer process.



Since your `renderer` process is also responsible for UI/DOM, etc, you may not want to do any heavy

processing on the renderer process. You could leverage this module to have the renderer stream

data to the `main` process for processing and then the `main` module could stream results

back to the `renderer` process for consumption.



Install

-------



    npm i --save electron-ipc-stream



Usage

-----



### Example 1: Pipe file from main process to renderer.



**main.js:**



```js

var app = require('app')

var fs = require('fs')

var path = require('path')

var window = require('electron-window')

var IPCStream = require('electron-ipc-stream')



app.on('ready', function () {

  var win = window.createWindow({ height: 600, with: 1000 })



  var ipcs = new IPCStream('any-arbitrary-channel-name', win)

  win.showUrl(path.resolve(__dirname, './index.html'), function () {

    // window is visible, dom is ready in window

    fs.createReadStream('/tmp/mainfile').pipe(ipcs)

  })

})

```



**rend.js:**



```js

var fs = require('fs')

var ipc = require('ipc')

var IPCStream = require('electron-ipc-stream')

var ipcs = new IPCStream('any-arbitrary-channel-name')



document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function () {

  ipcs.pipe(fs.createWriteStream('/tmp/rendfile')).on('finish', function () {

    console.log('done')

  })

})

```



### Example 2: Pipe file from renderer process to main.



**main.js:**



```js

var app = require('app')

var fs = require('fs')

var path = require('path')

var window = require('electron-window')

var IPCStream = require('electron-ipc-stream')



var tmpfile = '/tmp/mainfile'

app.on('ready', function () {

  var win = window.createWindow({ height: 600, with: 1000 })

  var ipcs = new IPCStream('any-arbitrary-channel-name', win)

  ipcs.pipe(fs.createWriteStream(tmpfile)).on('finish', function () {

    console.log('done')

  })

  win.showUrl(path.resolve(__dirname, './index.html'), function () { })

})

```



**rend.js:**



```js

var crypt = require('crypto') // notice this is 'crypt' and not 'crypto'

var fs = require('fs')

var ipc = require('ipc')

var IPCStream = require('electron-ipc-stream')

var ipcs = new IPCStream('any-arbitrary-channel-name')



fs.writeFileSync('/tmp/rendfile', crypt.randomBytes(10000))

document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function () {

  fs.createReadStream(tmpfile).pipe(ipcs)

})

```



API

----



### Main Process



#### IPCStream(channel, [browserWindow], [streamOptions])



Create a new IPCStream in the `main` process.



### Renderer Process



#### IPCStream(channel, [streamOptions])



Create a new IPCStream in the `renderer` process.



### Stream Options



You shouldn't have to mess with `objectMode`. Under the hood, `objectMode` is `true`.

Buffers are serialized to JSON. This is because of the way that Electron handles buffers

in renderer. See: https://github.com/atom/electron/blob/master/docs/api/remote.md for

more detail. You also may need to adjust [`highWaterMark`](https://nodejs.org/api/stream.html).



### JSON Objects



It is completely safe to call `write` on either end of the stream with objects.



source:



```js

myStream.write({name: 'JP'})

```



dest:



```js

// streams 1 (flowing):

myStream.on('data', function (data) {

  console.dir(data) // => {name: 'JP'}

})



// streams 2/3 (pull, if you prefer):

myStream.on('readable', function () {

  var data

  while (null !=== (data = myStream.read())) {

    console.dir(data) // => {name: 'JP'}

  }

})



```



### Examples



In the `./test` folder, you'll see two examples. You can run these by

installing [electron-prebuilt](https://www.npmjs.com/package/electron-prebuilt):



    npm i -g electron-prebuilt

    electron ./test/main-to-rend

    electron ./test/rend-to-main



License

-------



MIT Copyright [JP Richardson](https://github.com/jprichardson)