Creating Duplex streams in Node.js
Blog post from LogRocket
Duplex streams in Node.js are a hybrid type of stream that incorporate both readable and writable functionalities, allowing for independent reading from and writing to streams. Such streams are crucial in the digital realm, particularly in applications like Sockets, because they manage data flow between sources and destinations. The article explains the concept of streams and categorizes them into four types: Writable, Readable, Duplex, and Transform, with Duplex streams enabling bidirectional data flow. It provides examples like TCP sockets, zlib, and crypto streams, and demonstrates how to implement a custom Duplex stream using Node.js, specifically by creating a delay in data transfer through a Throttle class. This setup is achieved by using Node.js's stream module, including the PassThrough stream to facilitate piping data between readable and writable streams. The discussion highlights the practicality of Duplex streams in managing complex data operations, emphasizing their importance in creating efficient and responsive streaming applications.