Handle timeout callback event in readFile method of Node.js

My requirement is like below:

I have 3 Big files big_file_1, big_file_2 and big_file_3. I want to read this 3 big files asynchronously and process my rest of the code only after the reading of all files are completed.

fs.readFile('big_file_1', function (err, data) {
  if (err) throw err;
  content_1 = data;
});
fs.readFile('big_file_2', function (err, data) {
  if (err) throw err;
  content_2 = data;
});
fs.readFile('big_file_3', function (err, data) {
  if (err) throw err;
  content_3 = data;
});
// Do something with content_1, content_2 and content_3

How can I achieve this in Node.JS ?

You can do it using the parallel function of the async library:

async.parallel([
  fs.readFile.bind(fs, 'big_file_1'),
  fs.readFile.bind(fs, 'big_file_2'),
  fs.readFile.bind(fs, 'big_file_3')
], function (err, results) {
  if (err) throw err;
  content_1 = results[0]
  content_2 = results[1]
  content_3 = results[2]
  /* TODO do some cool stuff */
})

Alternatively, you can do it manually:

int steps_done = 0
fs.readFile('big_file_1', function(err, data) {
  if (err) throw err
  content_1 = data
  if (++steps_done == 3) do_next_step()
})
fs.readFile('big_file_2', function(err, data) {
  if (err) throw err
  content_2 = data
  if (++steps_done == 3) do_next_step()
})
fs.readFile('big_file_3', function(err, data) {
  if (err) throw err
  content_3 = data
  if (++steps_done == 3) do_next_step()
})