Read from external file into variable for this.response.speak - alexa

Question

I have the following intent for an Alexa Skill and I need to read a .txt file from an external URL into a variable for Alexa to say it. This is what I have so far...
'PlayVoice': function() {
var url = "https://example.com/myfile.txt";
var output = 'Okay, here is the text file' + url;
this.response.speak(output);
this.emit(':responseReady');
},
Obviously, the only thing it does now is to read the actual URL.
I have tried using fs.readFile but I just get an error in the Alexa Skill. This is the code I tried:
'PlayVoice': function() {
var content;
fs.readFile('https://example.com/myfile.txt', function read(err, data) {
content = data;
this.response.speak(content);
}
this.emit(':responseReady');
},
Any help on how to simply read a text file into a variable I can get Alexa to speak via this.response.speak?

Answer 1

You can use request package.
something like this should help.
var request = require('request');
request('url/of/the/file', function (error, response, body) {
console.log('error:', error); // Print the error if one occurred
console.log('statusCode:', response && response.statusCode); // Print the response status code if a response was received
console.log('body:', body); // contents of your file.
});
source : https://www.npmjs.com/package/request#super-simple-to-use
Also you'll need to add the package request to your skill's lambda.
To do that install the request package in the folder where your code is (lambda_function.js and all other files). Then create a zip of all the files (not the folder in which your files are) and upload it to your aws lambda.