vfile is a virtual file format part of the unified collective.

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Intro

vfile is a virtual file format used by unified, a text processing umbrella (it powers retext for natural language, remark for markdown, and rehype for HTML). Each processors that parse, transform, and compile text, and need a virtual representation of files and a place to store messages about them. Plus, they work in the browser. vfile provides these requirements at a small size.

• Visit unified.js.org and try its guides for an overview
• Read unified’s readme for a technical intro
• Follow us on Medium and Twitter to see what we’re up to
• Check out Contribute below to find out how to help out

vfile is different from the excellent vinyl in that it has a smaller API, a smaller size, and focuses on messages.

vfile can be used anywhere where files need a lightweight representation. For example, it’s used in:

• documentation — The documentation system for modern JavaScript
• awoo — Declarative small site generator
• geojsonhint — Complete, fast, standards-based validation for geojson

Installation

npm:

npm install vfile

Table of Contents

• Usage
• Utilities
• Reporters
• API
  • VFile([options])
  • vfile.contents
  • vfile.cwd
  • vfile.path
  • vfile.basename
  • vfile.stem
  • vfile.extname
  • vfile.dirname
  • vfile.history
  • vfile.messages
  • vfile.data
  • VFile#toString([encoding])
  • VFile#message(reason[, position][, origin])
  • VFile#info(reason[, position][, origin])
  • VFile#fail(reason[, position][, origin])
• Contribute
• Acknowledgments
• License

Usage

var vfile = require('vfile')
 
var file = vfile({path: '~/example.txt', contents: 'Alpha *braavo* charlie.'})
 
file.path // => '~/example.txt'
file.dirname // => '~'
 
file.extname = '.md'
 
file.basename // => 'example.md'
 
file.basename = 'index.text'
 
file.history // => ['~/example.txt', '~/example.md', '~/index.text']
 
file.message('`braavo` is misspelt; did you mean `bravo`?', {
  line: 1,
  column: 8
})
 
console.log(file.messages)

Yields:

[ { [~/index.text:1:8: `braavo` is misspelt; did you mean `bravo`?]
    message: '`braavo` is misspelt; did you mean `bravo`?',
    name: '~/index.text:1:8',
    file: '~/index.text',
    reason: '`braavo` is misspelt; did you mean `bravo`?',
    line: 1,
    column: 8,
    location: { start: [Object], end: [Object] },
    ruleId: null,
    source: null,
    fatal: false } ]

Utilities

The following list of projects includes tools for working with virtual files. See unist for projects working with nodes.

• convert-vinyl-to-vfile — Convert from Vinyl
• is-vfile-message — Check if a value is a VMessage object
• to-vfile — Create a virtual file from a file-path (and optionally read it)
• vfile-find-down — Find files by searching the file system downwards
• vfile-find-up — Find files by searching the file system upwards
• vfile-glob — Find files by glob patterns
• vfile-is — Check if a file passes a test
• vfile-location — Convert between line/column- and range-based locations
• vfile-message — Create a VMessage object (used in vfile itself)
• vfile-messages-to-vscode-diagnostics — Convert to VS Code diagnostics
• vfile-statistics — Count messages per category
• vfile-sort — Sort messages by line/column
• vfile-to-eslint — Convert vfiles to ESLint formatter compatible output

Reporters

The following list of projects show linting results for given virtual files. Reporters must accept Array.<VFile> as their first argument, and return string. Reporters may accept other values too, in which case it’s suggested to stick to vfile-reporters interface.

• vfile-reporter — Stylish reporter
• vfile-reporter-json — JSON reporter
• vfile-reporter-folder-json — JSON reporter with a folder structure
• vfile-reporter-pretty — Pretty reporter

API

VFile([options])

Create a new virtual file. If options is string or Buffer, treats it as {contents: options}. If options is a VFile, returns it. All other options are set on the newly created vfile.

Path related properties are set in the following order (least specific to most specific): history, path, basename, stem, extname, dirname.

It’s not possible to set either dirname or extname without setting either history, path, basename, or stem as well.

Example

vfile()
vfile('console.log("alpha");')
vfile(Buffer.from('exit 1'))
vfile({path: path.join(__dirname, 'readme.md')})
vfile({stem: 'readme', extname: '.md', dirname: __dirname})
vfile({other: 'properties', are: 'copied', ov: {e: 'r'}})

vfile.contents

Buffer, string, null — Raw value.

vfile.cwd

string — Base of path. Defaults to process.cwd().

vfile.path

string? — Path of vfile. Cannot be nullified.

vfile.basename

string? — Current name (including extension) of vfile. Cannot contain path separators. Cannot be nullified either (use file.path = file.dirname instead).

vfile.stem

string? — Name (without extension) of vfile. Cannot be nullified, and cannot contain path separators.

vfile.extname

string? — Extension (with dot) of vfile. Cannot be set if there’s no path yet and cannot contain path separators.

vfile.dirname

string? — Path to parent directory of vfile. Cannot be set if there’s no path yet.

vfile.history

Array.<string> — List of file-paths the file moved between.

vfile.messages

Array.<VMessage> — List of messages associated with the file.

vfile.data

Object — Place to store custom information. It’s OK to store custom data directly on the vfile, moving it to data gives a little more privacy.

VFile#toString([encoding])

Convert contents of vfile to string. If contents is a buffer, encoding is used to stringify buffers (default: 'utf8').

VFile#message(reason[, position][, origin])

Associates a message with the file, where fatal is set to false. Constructs a new VMessage and adds it to vfile.messages.

Returns

VMessage.

VFile#info(reason[, position][, origin])

Associates an informational message with the file, where fatal is set to null. Calls #message() internally.

Returns

VMessage.

VFile#fail(reason[, position][, origin])

Associates a fatal message with the file, then immediately throws it. Note: fatal errors mean a file is no longer processable. Calls #message() internally.

Throws

VMessage.

Contribute

vfile is built by people just like you! Check out contributing.md for ways to get started.

This project has a Code of Conduct. By interacting with this repository, organisation, or community you agree to abide by its terms.

Want to chat with the community and contributors? Join us in spectrum!

Have an idea for a cool new utility or tool? That’s great! If you want feedback, help, or just to share it with the world you can do so by creating an issue in the vfile/ideas repository!

Acknowledgments

The initial release of this project was authored by @wooorm.

Thanks to @contra, @phated, and others for their work on Vinyl, which was a huge inspiration.

Thanks to @brendo, @shinnn, @KyleAMathews, @sindresorhus, and @denysdovhan for contributing commits since!

License

MIT © Titus Wormer