Dart - HTTPClient download file to string - file

Question

In the Flutter/Dart app that I am currently working on need to download large files from my servers. However, instead of storing the file in local storage what I need to do is to parse its contents and consume it one-off. I thought the best way to accomplish this was by implementing my own StreamConsumer and overriding the relvant methods. Here is what I have done thus far
import 'dart:io';
import 'dart:async';
class Accumulator extends StreamConsumer<List<int>>
{
String text = '';
#override
Future<void> addStream(Stream<List<int>> s) async
{
print('Adding');
//print(s.length);
return;
}
#override
Future<dynamic> close() async
{
print('closed');
return Future.value(text);
}
}
Future<String> fileFetch() async
{
String url = 'https://file.io/bse4moAYc7gW';
final HttpClientRequest request = await HttpClient().getUrl(Uri.parse(url));
final HttpClientResponse response = await request.close();
return await response.pipe(Accumulator());
}
Future<void> simpleFetch() async
{
String url = 'https://file.io/bse4moAYc7gW';
final HttpClientRequest request = await HttpClient().getUrl(Uri.parse(url));
final HttpClientResponse response = await request.close();
await response.pipe(File('sample.txt').openWrite());
print('Simple done!!');
}
void main() async
{
print('Starting');
await simpleFetch();
String text = await fileFetch();
print('Finished! $text');
}
When I run this in VSCode here is the output I get
Starting
Simple done!! //the contents of the file at https://file.io/bse4moAYc7gW are duly saved in the file
sample.txt
Adding //clearly addStream is being called
Instance of 'Future<int>' //I had expected to see the length of the available data here
closed //close is clearly being called BUT
Finished! //back in main()
My understanding of the underlying issues here is still rather limited. My expectation
I had thought that I would use addStream to accumulate the contents being downloaded until
There is nothing more to download at which point close would be called and the program would display exited
Why is addStream showing instance of... rather than the length of available content?
Although the VSCode debug console does display exited this happens several seconds after closed is displayed. I thought this might be an issue with having to call super.close() but not so. What am I doing wrong here?

Answer 1

I was going to delete this question but decided to leave it here with an answer for the benefit of anyone else trying to do something similar.
The key point to note is that the call to Accumulator.addStream does just that - it furnishes a stream to be listened to, no actual data to be read. What you do next is this
void whenData(List<int> data)
{
//you will typically get a sequence of one or more bytes here.
for(int value in data)
{
//accumulate the incoming data here
}
return;
}
function void whenDone()
{
//now that you have all the file data *accumulated* do what you like with it
}
#override
Future<void> addStream(Stream<List<int>> s) async
{
s.listen(whenData,onDone:whenDone);
//you can optionally ahandler for `onError`
}