stream-pausing-and-resuming.js

var through = require('through')

getSomeStream(function(err, stream) {
  stream.pause() // pause until we are ready to attach handlers
  process.nextTick(function() { // could be setTimeout
    stream.pipe(process.stdout) // now we're ready to consume the stream...
    stream.resume()
  })
})

function getSomeStream(callback) {
  var someStream = through().pause()
  someStream.write('foo\n')
  someStream.end()
  callback(null, someStream)
  // Whoops, this resumes *after* the pause above, so all our data gets swallowed now:
  someStream.resume()
}