throttled-reader

This module is for throttling the data rate on a streams2+ Readable stream. This is not done by buffering but rather by rate-limited reading in paused mode, meaning the throttle is relatively close to the source.

Example use case: unlike other throttle modules that use buffering, this can be used to effectively throttle an incoming TCP stream, affecting the other side of the connection as well because the internal Node and OS buffers will congest.

Accuracy can be anywhere from <1% to over 25% depending on the rate and the kind of source. High rate limits, slower streams and streams with few/small buffers tend to be throttled more accurately. The utilities in test-util can be used to perform measurements with socket and file streams.

Basic usage

Just wrap your readable stream in a ThrottledReader instance, which is also a Readable. You can then use the throttled stream in its place. ThrottledReader must be the only consumer of the source stream's data!

var ThrottledReader = require('throttled-reader');

var throttledStream = new ThrottledReader(sourceStream, {
    rate: 10 * 1024 // In bytes per second
});

throttledStream.pipe(destinationStream);

Reference

Constructor: ThrottledReader(readableStream[, throttleOptions[, streamOptions]])

• readableStream is the Readable to read from.

• throttleOptions may contain the following options:

  Option	Default	Description
  rate	0	Average rate to throttle to (bytes/sec).
  		Zero means unlimited.
  cooldownInterval	100	How often to determine whether reading may
  		continue (ms). Lower values are more accurate
  		but also introduce more processing overhead.

• streamOptions may contain constructor options for the new Readable.

The data rate can be dynamically changed using getRate() and setRate(rate).