Tape archiver library for Typescript

Tape archiver (tar) library for Typescript implementation.

What is this?

A modern TypeScript library for creating tape archives (tar/ustar format) using streaming API. Supports both files and directories with metadata preservation, GZip compression, readable streaming, and flexible content sources.

Features

• Streaming API: Memory-efficient processing of large files
• Multiple content sources: String, Buffer, ReadableStream, file paths and async generators
• Metadata preservation: File permissions, ownership, timestamps
• Built-in compression: GZip compression support (tar.gz format)
• No external dependencies.

Installation

npm install tar-vern

Minimal sample code

tar-vern supplies file and directory information to pack through "TypeScript async generator." This allows you to specify pack data with very concise code.

import {
  createTarPacker, storeReaderToFile,
  createFileItem, createDirectoryItem } from 'tar-vern';

// Create an async generator for tar entries
const itemGenerator = async function*() {
  // Add a simple text file
  yield await createFileItem(
    'hello.txt',      // file name
    'Hello, world!'   // text contents
  );
  
  // Add a directory
  yield await createDirectoryItem('mydir');

  // (Make your own entries with yield expression...)
};

// Create GZipped tar stream and write to file
const packer = createTarPacker(itemGenerator(), 'gzip');
await storeReaderToFile(packer, 'archive.tar.gz');   // Use helper to awaitable

tar-vern provides tar extraction through async generator too, allowing you to process entries as they are extracted from the tar archive.

import { createReadStream } from 'fs';
import { createTarExtractor } from 'tar-vern';

// Read GZipped tar file and extract entries
const readableStream = createReadStream('archive.tar.gz');

for await (const extractedItem of createTarExtractor(readableStream), 'gzip') {
  if (extractedItem.kind === 'file') {
    console.log(`File: ${extractedItem.path}`);
    
    // Get content as string or buffer
    const content = await extractedItem.getContent('string');
    console.log(`Content: ${content}`);
  } else {
    console.log(`Directory: ${extractedItem.path}`);
  }
}

Features

• Bidirectional streaming: Both creation and extraction of tar archives
• Memory-efficient: Streaming API for processing large files without content buffering
• Multiple content sources: String, Buffer, ReadableStream, file paths and async generators
• Metadata preservation: File permissions, ownership, timestamps
• Built-in compression/decompression: GZip compression support (tar.gz format)
• Flexible content access: Extract files as string, Buffer, or Readable stream on demand
• Error handling: Comprehensive validation and error reporting
• Abort signal support: Cancellable operations
• No external dependencies: Pure TypeScript implementation

For more information, see repository documents.

License

Under MIT.