Very simple static file handler, with a few electives.

npm install lactate

npm test lactate

Preliminary benchmarks show that Lactate has a significant advantage over most worthy competitors on the node modules wiki

See /benchmarks for details

Just pass three arguments to the serve function path [optional], request, response. Lactate will stream your file to the client in the most efficient way, by piping: readFile > gZip > response.

var express = require('express')
var app = express.createServer()

var lactate = require('lactate').Lactate()

app.get('/', function(req, res) {
  return lactate.serve('pages/land.html', req, res)
})

lactate.set('root', 'files')

app.get('/files/*', function(req, res) {
  return lactate.serve(req, res)
})

lactate.set({
  root:process.cwd(),
  expires:'one day and 12 minutes',
  debug:true
})

app.get('/images/:img', function(req, res) {
  var img = req.params.img
  return lactate.serve('thumbs/'+img, req, res)
})

app.listen(8080)

##The varieties of Lactate experience

In the general case, the Lactate method returns an object with the methods serve set and get, importantly. However, there are more convenient methods exported by Lactate. They follow.

###Serving an individual file

To serve an individual file, use the file method.

  var Lactate = require('lactate')

  app.get('*', function(req, res) {
    return Lactate.file('images/somn.jpg', req, res)
  })

###Namespacing a directory

The dir method allows you to namespace a directory, for convenience.

var Lactate = require('lactate')
var images = Lactate.dir('images', {expires:'one day'})

app.get('/images/:image', function(req, res) {
  return images.serve(req.params.image, req, res)
})

###Middleware

For maximum convenience, you may use the toMiddleware method on directories.

var Lactate = require('lactate')

var images = Lactate.dir('images', {
  expires:'one day'
}).toMiddleware()

app.use(images) //That's it!

You may also pass additional options to the toMiddleware function.

var images = Lactate.dir('images', {
  expires:'one day'
})

var middleware = images.toMiddleware({
  public:'images'
})

app.use(middleware)

##Options

Options can be passed to the initialization function or using the set method.

//Passing to initialization function
var lactate = require('lactate').Lactate({
  expires:'two days'
})

//Set method
lactate.set('expires', null)

//Either function accepts (key, value) or an object.

• root string

Local directory from which to serve files. By default, the current working directory.

• public string

Public directory exposed to clients. If set, only requests from /directory will complete.

• cache boolean

Keep files in-memory. Enabled by default, and no great reason to disable.

• expires number or string

Pass this function a number (of seconds) or a string and appropriate headers will be set for client-side caching. Lactate comes with expiration defaults, such as 'two days' or '5 years and sixteen days' See Expire for details.

lactate.set('expires', 87500)
//87500 seconds
lactate.set('expires', 'two days')
//172800 seconds
lactate.set'expires', 'five weeks and one minute and ten seconds')
//3024070 seconds
lactate.set('expires', 'one year and 2 months and seven weeks and 16 seconds')
//41050028 seconds

• debug boolean (optional) number (optional) function (optional)

Debugging in Lactate is level-based (bases: 0, 1). Level 0 logs completed request information, status codes, etc.. Level 1 provides more details along the service. You may override the default debug function (console.log) with your own.

var lactate = require('lactate')({
  debug:true // Will use console.log to debug all events
})

lactate.set('debug', 0, function(level, msg, path, statusCode) {
  /* 
    Captures all level 0 events

    Note however that statusCode arguments are only
    given for level 0 listeners
  */
})

lactate.set('debug', 1, console.log)
lactate.set({debug:false})

##TODO

• Express middleware
• Expiration defaults, e.g. 'two days,' 'one month'
• External (Redis) caching ability