S3 GetObject returns a stream body

[GeorgeBrn]

Describe the issue

This documentation is absolutely deplorable, without chatGPT I would've been unable to use S3. Literally not one word about 'getObjectCommand' returning data in streams and you having to handle the chunks with a promise. All I wanted to do was to upload an image from a nodeJs server and then read it from S3. Of course, this simple task took me several hours because getting the body from an S3 file is apparently a herculean task

Links

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSJavaScriptSDK/v3/latest/client/s3/command/GetObjectCommand/

[kuhe]

The linked page states the return type of the body in S3 GetObject is a stream in the section "Example Syntax" and in the section "GetObjectCommand Output".

Also take a look at https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-javascript/v3/developer-guide/javascript_s3_code_examples.html#basics.

As part of #6691, we will be creating additional documentation for streaming operations.

[GeorgeBrn]

There is nothing readable in there, I am not a beginner programmer and the usage example isn't a real code example... Just a bunch of convoluted text with no meaning. Every other Nodejs SDK out there shows you how to implement, but Amazon is way above that.

---------------------------------ACTUAL CODE EXAMPLE---------------------------------------------
async function getObjectFromS3() {
try {
const { Body } = await s3Client.send(
new GetObjectCommand({
Bucket: "YOUR BUCKET NAME",
Key: "YOUR KEY",
})
);

const chunks = [];
Body.on("data", (chunk) => {
  chunks.push(chunk);
});

return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
  Body.on("end", () => {
    const buffer = Buffer.concat(chunks);
    resolve(buffer); // Return the image buffer
  });

  Body.on("error", (err) => {
    reject(err); // Reject the promise on error
  });
});

} catch (error) {
console.error("Error getting file", error); // Handle and log errors
}
}

Is it really that hard to paste this in there?

[kuhe]

Using the example from https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-javascript/v3/developer-guide/javascript_s3_code_examples.html#basics, you do not need to concatenate into a buffer yourself.

import {
  GetObjectCommand,
  S3Client,
} from "@aws-sdk/client-s3";

const response = await client.send(
  new GetObjectCommand({
    Bucket: bucketName,
    Key: key,
  }),
);

const str = await response.Body.transformToString();
console.log(str); // a string.

Alternatively, a byte array

// Uint8Array, which can be converted to Buffer.
const bytes = await response.Body.transformToByteArray();

[kuhe]

Currently, the developer guide linked above contains more practical examples than the auto-generated API shape documentation you have seen.

We plan to integrate this example into the API docs in a future update.