It's certainly possible. You can play around with this example:
var express = require('express')
, app = express()
, zlib = require('zlib')
app.get('/*', function(req, res) {
res.status(200)
var stream = zlib.createGzip()
stream.pipe(res)
var count = 0
stream.write('[')
;(function fetch_entry() {
if (count > 10) return stream.end(']')
stream.write((count ? ',' : '') + JSON.stringify({
_id: count,
some_random_garbage: Math.random(),
}))
count++
setTimeout(fetch_entry, 100)
})()
})
app.listen(1337)
console.log('run `curl http://localhost:1337/ | zcat` to see the output')
I assume you're streaming JSON, and setTimeout calls would need to be replaced with actual database calls of course. But the idea stays the same.