How to get response from S3 getObject in Node.js?

In a Node.js project I am attempting to get data back from S3.

When I use getSignedURL, everything works:

aws.getSignedUrl('getObject', params, function(err, url){
    console.log(url); 
}); 

My params are:

var params = {
              Bucket: "test-aws-imagery", 
              Key: "TILES/Level4/A3_B3_C2/A5_B67_C59_Tiles.par"

If I take the URL output to the console and paste it in a web browser, it downloads the file I need.

However, if I try to use getObject I get all sorts of odd behavior. I believe I am just using it incorrectly. This is what I've tried:

aws.getObject(params, function(err, data){
    console.log(data); 
    console.log(err); 
}); 

Outputs:

{ 
  AcceptRanges: 'bytes',
  LastModified: 'Wed, 06 Apr 2016 20:04:02 GMT',
  ContentLength: '1602862',
  ETag: '9826l1e5725fbd52l88ge3f5v0c123a4"',
  ContentType: 'application/octet-stream',
  Metadata: {},
  Body: <Buffer 01 00 00 00  ... > }

  null

So it appears that this is working properly. However, when I put a breakpoint on one of the console.logs, my IDE (NetBeans) throws an error and refuses to show the value of data. While this could just be the IDE, I decided to try other ways to use getObject.

aws.getObject(params).on('httpData', function(chunk){
    console.log(chunk); 
}).on('httpDone', function(data){
    console.log(data); 
});

This does not output anything. Putting a breakpoint in shows that the code never reaches either of the console.logs. I also tried:

aws.getObject(params).on('success', function(data){
    console.log(data); 
});

However, this also does not output anything and placing a breakpoint shows that the console.log is never reached.

What am I doing wrong?

@aws-sdk/client-s3 (2022 Update)

Since I wrote this answer in 2016, Amazon has released a new JavaScript SDK, @aws-sdk/client-s3. This new version improves on the original getObject() by returning a promise always instead of opting in via .promise() being chained to getObject(). In addition to that, response.Body is no longer a Buffer but, one of Readable|ReadableStream|Blob. This changes the handling of the response.Data a bit. This should be more performant since we can stream the data returned instead of holding all of the contents in memory, with the trade-off being that it is a bit more verbose to implement.

In the below example the response.Body data will be streamed into an array and then returned as a string. This is the equivalent example of my original answer. Alternatively, the response.Body could use stream.Readable.pipe() to an HTTP Response, a File or any other type of stream.Writeable for further usage, this would be the more performant way when getting large objects.

If you wanted to use a Buffer, like the original getObject() response, this can be done by wrapping responseDataChunks in a Buffer.concat() instead of using Array#join(), this would be useful when interacting with binary data. To note, since Array#join() returns a string, each Buffer instance in responseDataChunks will have Buffer.toString() called implicitly and the default encoding of utf8 will be used.

const { GetObjectCommand, S3Client } = require('@aws-sdk/client-s3')
const client = new S3Client() // Pass in opts to S3 if necessary

function getObject (Bucket, Key) {
  return new Promise(async (resolve, reject) => {
    const getObjectCommand = new GetObjectCommand({ Bucket, Key })

    try {
      const response = await client.send(getObjectCommand)
  
      // Store all of data chunks returned from the response data stream 
      // into an array then use Array#join() to use the returned contents as a String
      let responseDataChunks = []

      // Handle an error while streaming the response body
      response.Body.once('error', err => reject(err))
  
      // Attach a 'data' listener to add the chunks of data to our array
      // Each chunk is a Buffer instance
      response.Body.on('data', chunk => responseDataChunks.push(chunk))
  
      // Once the stream has no more data, join the chunks into a string and return the string
      response.Body.once('end', () => resolve(responseDataChunks.join('')))
    } catch (err) {
      // Handle the error or throw
      return reject(err)
    } 
  })
}

Comments on using Readable.toArray()

Using Readable.toArray() instead of working with the stream events directly might be more convenient to use but, its worse performing. It works by reading all response data chunks into memory before moving on. Since this removes all benefits of streaming, this approach is discouraged per the Node.js docs.

As this method reads the entire stream into memory, it negates the benefits of streams. It's intended for interoperability and convenience, not as the primary way to consume streams. Documentation Link

@aws-sdk/client-s3 Documentation Links

• GetObjectCommand
• GetObjectCommandInput
• GetObjectCommandOutput

aws-sdk (Original Answer)

When doing a getObject() from the S3 API, per the docs the contents of your file are located in the Body property, which you can see from your sample output. You should have code that looks something like the following

const aws = require('aws-sdk');
const s3 = new aws.S3(); // Pass in opts to S3 if necessary

var getParams = {
    Bucket: 'abc', // your bucket name,
    Key: 'abc.txt' // path to the object you're looking for
}

s3.getObject(getParams, function(err, data) {
    // Handle any error and exit
    if (err)
        return err;

  // No error happened
  // Convert Body from a Buffer to a String
  let objectData = data.Body.toString('utf-8'); // Use the encoding necessary
});

You may not need to create a new buffer from the data.Body object but if you need you can use the sample above to achieve that.