Abstract File Systems with Flysystem

Reading and writing files is an integral aspect of any programming language, but the underlying implementation can vary enormously. For example, the finer details of writing data to the local filesystem compared to uploading over FTP is very different - yet conceptually, it’s very similar.

In addition to old warhorses like FTP, online storage is increasingly ubiquitous and inexpensive - with scores of services available such as Dropbox, Amazon’s S3 and Rackspace’s Cloud Files - but these all use subtly different methods for reading and writing.

That’s where flysystem comes in. It provides a layer of abstraction over multiple file systems, which means you don’t need to worry where the files are, how they’re stored, or need be concerned with low-level I/O operations. All you need to worry about are the high-level operations such as reading, writing and organizing into directories.

Such abstraction also makes it simpler to switch from one system to another without having to rewrite vast swathes of application code. It also provides a logical approach to moving or copying data from one storage system to another, without worrying about the underlying implementation.

You can use Dropbox, S3, Cloud Files, FTP or SFTP as if they were local; saving a file becomes the same process whether it’s being saved locally or transferred over the network. You can treat zip archives as if they were a bunch of folders, without worrying about the nitty gritty of creating and compressing the archives themselves.

Continue reading %Abstract File Systems with Flysystem%

more