# multistream [![travis][travis-image]][travis-url] [![npm][npm-image]][npm-url] [![downloads][downloads-image]][downloads-url] [![javascript style guide][standard-image]][standard-url]
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#### A stream that emits multiple other streams one after another (streams3)
[![Sauce Test Status](https://saucelabs.com/browser-matrix/multistream.svg)](https://saucelabs.com/u/multistream)
![cat](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/feross/multistream/master/img.jpg)
Simple, robust streams3 version of [combined-stream](https://www.npmjs.org/package/combined-stream). Allows you to combine multiple streams into a single stream. When the first stream ends, the next one starts, and so on, until all streams are consumed.
This module is used by [WebTorrent](http://webtorrent.io), specifically [create-torrent](https://github.com/feross/create-torrent).
### install
```
npm install multistream
```
### usage
Use `multistream` like this:
```js
var MultiStream = require('multistream')
var fs = require('fs')
var streams = [
fs.createReadStream(__dirname + '/numbers/1.txt'),
fs.createReadStream(__dirname + '/numbers/2.txt'),
fs.createReadStream(__dirname + '/numbers/3.txt')
]
new MultiStream(streams).pipe(process.stdout) // => 123
```
You can also create an object-mode stream with `MultiStream.obj(streams)`.
To lazily create the streams, wrap them in a function:
```js
var streams = [
fs.createReadStream(__dirname + '/numbers/1.txt'),
function () { // will be executed when the stream is active
return fs.createReadStream(__dirname + '/numbers/2.txt')
},
function () { // same
return fs.createReadStream(__dirname + '/numbers/3.txt')
}
]
new MultiStream(streams).pipe(process.stdout) // => 123
```
Alternatively, streams may be created by an asynchronous "factory" function:
```js
var count = 0
function factory (cb) {
if (count > 3) return cb(null, null)
count++
setTimeout(function () {
cb(null, fs.createReadStream(__dirname + '/numbers/' + count + '.txt'))
}, 100)
}
new MultiStream(factory).pipe(process.stdout) // => 123
```
### contributors
- [Feross Aboukhadijeh](http://feross.org)
- [Mathias Buus](https://github.com/mafintosh/)
- [Yuri Astrakhan](https://github.com/nyurik/)
### license
MIT. Copyright (c) [Feross Aboukhadijeh](http://feross.org).