Node.js readline — Working Examples

A collection of small, runnable examples that show how to use Node.js's built-in readline module.

Written for 1st-year software engineering students: every example is short, heavily commented, and runs on its own with no external dependencies.

Requirements

• Node.js v18 or newer (anything modern will work)
• A terminal (Terminal on macOS/Linux, PowerShell/CMD on Windows)

How to run an example

Open a terminal in the project root and run:

node 01-basic-input/index.js

Replace the folder name with whichever example you want to try.

What's in here

Folder	What it teaches
01-basic-input	Read a single line from the keyboard
02-question	Ask the user a question and use the answer
03-multiple-questions	Chain several questions together
04-read-file-line-by-line	Read a text file one line at a time
05-events	Listen to line, close, and SIGINT events
06-pause-resume	Temporarily pause and resume input
07-autocomplete	Add tab-autocompletion to a prompt
08-history	Remember and reuse previous inputs
09-cursor-control	Move the cursor and clear the terminal line
10-promises-api	Use readline/promises with async/await
11-async-iterator	Loop over input lines with for await...of
12-mini-calculator	A small interactive project that ties it together

Each folder has its own README.md that explains the example in more detail.

Tip

Most examples wait for input and exit when you press Ctrl+C or type exit. Read the comments inside each index.js — they explain every line.