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I/O

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Input and Output

  • Computers have many senses -- keyboard, mouse, network card, camera, joystick, etc. Collectively, these are called INPUT.

  • Computers can also express themselves in many ways -- text, graphics, sound, networking, printing, etc. Collectively, these are called OUTPUT.

  • Input and Output together are called I/O.

  • the only part of your laptop that is really a computer is the CPU and the RAM; all the other parts (keyboard, trackpad, display, disk drive, etc.) are technically I/O devices

Memory vs I/O

  • Performing calculations and accessing memory is very fast
  • ...but reading and writing to I/O devices is slow
    • (at least as far as the CPU is concerned)
    • I/O operations can take seconds or milliseconds; CPU operations take nanoseconds
  • Every time you ask JavaScript to do an I/O operation, it pauses your program
    • this allows the CPU to spend time doing other things, not just sitting idle waiting for a key to be pressed or a file to be written
  • In NodeJS, you have to write a function for JavaScript to run once it resumes
    • this function is named an asynchronous callback
    • asynchronous is Greek for "out of time" or "not together in time"

Terminal I/O

  • In JavaScript,

    • console.log means "print a line to the terminal"

  • In NodeJS,

    • process.stdin means "input coming from the terminal"
    • Reading a line of input in NodeJS is weird

The weirdness is explained on the next slide!

node load code, decoded

function handleInput(input) {
  let inputAsString = input.toString();
  console.log("The input is: ", inputAsString);
}

process.stdin.once('data', handleInput)

console.log("Waiting for input...");

once is a function that takes two parameters, and its second parameter is another function

phrase meaning
process.stdin hey terminal input,
.once('data', ...) when you get some data,
function handleInput(input) please name it input
{ ... } send it to this block of code
input.toString() convert it to a string
console.log(inputAsString) and print it to the terminal

Welcome to Callback City!

The previous code is equivalent to this:

process.stdin.once('data', function handleInput(input) { 
  let inputAsString = input.toString();
  console.log(inputAsString);
});

The handleInput function itself is called a callback (since you are asking the I/O device to call the function when it receives input).

Readline

  • NodeJS is more than a JavaScript interpreter
  • It's also a collection of JavaScript libraries
  • One of the libraries is called readline
    • readline makes it easier to read lines, naturally :-)
    • the "books" in this library are functions
      • (and classes and other things too)

Using readline

Warning: this code uses features we have not yet covered! Copy and paste it verbatim during the codealong below, and don't worry if it doesn't make much sense yet.

To use readline, include the following lines in the top of your source file:

const readline = require('readline');
const readlineInterface = readline.createInterface(process.stdin, process.stdout);

function ask(questionText) {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    readlineInterface.question(questionText, resolve);
  });
}

This is called "boilerplate code" -- you don't need to fully understand it before using it.

using readline - explanation

code explanation
const readline = require('readline'); load the readline package and name it readline
const readlineInterface = readline.createInterface({...}) create an interface to readline using the following settings:
process.stdin, for input, use the standard input stream (i.e. terminal keyboard input)
process.stdout for output, use the standard output stream (i.e. terminal console output)
function ask(questionText) {...} a function named ask that uses the Promise API to asynchronously ask a question and wait for a reply

(We will cover the Promise API in much more detail later; for now, all you really need to know is that Promises allow us to use async and await in the next slide.)

LAB: using readline and await

Codealong time! Please follow along with the instructor and enter this code into a file named quest.js:

const readline = require('readline');
const readlineInterface = readline.createInterface(process.stdin, process.stdout);

function ask(questionText) {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    readlineInterface.question(questionText, resolve);
  });
}

start();

async function start() {
  let name = await ask('What is your name? ');
  let quest = await ask('What is your quest? ');
  let color = await ask('What is your favorite color? ');
  console.log('Hello ' + name + '! ' +
    'Good luck with ' + quest + ', ' +
    'and here is a ' + color + ' flower for you.');
  process.exit();
}
  • run it from the command line using node quest.js

Async Await

  • We will learn a lot more about callbacks, promises, and async/await later
  • For now, follow these two rules when using async and await:
  1. await means "wait for the following thing to happen"
  2. when you use await inside a function, you must use async to define that function

WARNING: async functions don't play nicely with for loops! (Fortunately, there are other ways to loop that do work well.)

LAB: Full Name

  • Now it's your turn to write a program from scratch.
  • Write a program named name.js that asks two things:
    1. Your first name
    2. Your last name

  • Then it says hello to the user by their full name.

  • Run the program by typing node name.js on the command line.

Full Name solution

const readline = require('readline');
const readlineInterface = readline.createInterface(process.stdin, process.stdout);

function ask(questionText) {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    readlineInterface.question(questionText, resolve);
  });
}

async function fullName() {
  let firstName = await ask("What is your first name? ")
  let lastName = await ask("What is your last name? ")

  console.log("Hello, " + firstName + " " + lastName + "!")
}

fullName()