I'm a beginner in node, I want to create a list data structure from reading a txt file, here is my code to read the file.

        var fs = require("fs");
        var filename = require("../films.txt");
        
        fs.readFile(filename, 'utf8', function(err,data){
          var contents = data;
          var splitContents = contents.split("\n");
          var string = JSON.stringify(splitContents);
          console.log(string)
        });
    
    

And below this line is the text file I want to read is 20 movies, the name of the file is films.txt.

    1. The Shawshank Redemption
    2. The Godfather
    3. The Godfather: Part II
    4. Pulp Fiction
    5. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
    6. 12 Angry Men
    7. Schindler’s List
    8. The Dark Knight
    9. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
    10. Fight Club
    11. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
    12. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
    13. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
    14. Inception
    15. Goodfellas
    16. Star Wars
    17. Seven Samurai
    18. The Matrix
    19. Forrest Gump
    20. City of God
         

Every single time I run the program and console.log the contents I get the same error

(function (exports, require, module, __filename, __dirname) { 1. The Shawshank Redemption

                                                              ^^^

SyntaxError: Unexpected identifier

    at Object.exports.runInThisContext (vm.js:76:16)

    at Module._pile (module.js:542:28)

    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:579:10)

    at Module.load (module.js:487:32)

    at tryModuleLoad (module.js:446:12)

    at Function.Module._load (module.js:438:3)

    at Module.require (module.js:497:17)

    at require (internal/module.js:20:19)

I will appreciate the feedback on what I am doing wrong, thank you

I'm a beginner in node, I want to create a list data structure from reading a txt file, here is my code to read the file.

        var fs = require("fs");
        var filename = require("../films.txt");
        
        fs.readFile(filename, 'utf8', function(err,data){
          var contents = data;
          var splitContents = contents.split("\n");
          var string = JSON.stringify(splitContents);
          console.log(string)
        });
    
    

And below this line is the text file I want to read is 20 movies, the name of the file is films.txt.

    1. The Shawshank Redemption
    2. The Godfather
    3. The Godfather: Part II
    4. Pulp Fiction
    5. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
    6. 12 Angry Men
    7. Schindler’s List
    8. The Dark Knight
    9. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
    10. Fight Club
    11. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
    12. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
    13. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
    14. Inception
    15. Goodfellas
    16. Star Wars
    17. Seven Samurai
    18. The Matrix
    19. Forrest Gump
    20. City of God
         

Every single time I run the program and console.log the contents I get the same error

(function (exports, require, module, __filename, __dirname) { 1. The Shawshank Redemption

                                                              ^^^

SyntaxError: Unexpected identifier

    at Object.exports.runInThisContext (vm.js:76:16)

    at Module._pile (module.js:542:28)

    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:579:10)

    at Module.load (module.js:487:32)

    at tryModuleLoad (module.js:446:12)

    at Function.Module._load (module.js:438:3)

    at Module.require (module.js:497:17)

    at require (internal/module.js:20:19)

I will appreciate the feedback on what I am doing wrong, thank you

• javascript
• node.js

• When you see _pile in the runstack it indicates a syntax issue, meaning your javascript isn't properly formed (missing bracket etc). – rasmeister Commented Feb 2, 2017 at 21:46

2 Answers 2

This:

var filename = require("../films.txt");

should be this:

var filename = "../films.txt";

filename should be the path to your file. require are used to load modules (which are valid javascript code not movie list).

require loads a file as if it is Javascript code, attempting to run it. Your text file is not Javascript code. You simply want to do this:

    var fs = require("fs");
    var filename = "../films.txt";

    fs.readFile(filename, 'utf8', function(err,data){
      // ...