In almost every application, you come to a point where you need to access the filesystem. This is an essential skill, that I personally use as a starting point when learning a new language or platform. With Node.js, you can rely on to work with the filesystem. Common tasks in this regard usually include: built-in modules Listing directories contents Reading, writing and updating files Manipulating filesystem paths Due to the nature of Node.js, coding these tasks might be a bit different from what can be seen in other languages/platforms, so it's always interesting to make sure you're starting with the right habits. asynchronous To get started with these tasks, I'll leave you in the hands of my friend , with short videos that run for less than 5 min each. Aaron Powell What you'll learn here How built-in and modules work fs path List the contents in directories Manipulate filesystem paths and get to know special Node.js paths Create files and directories, with proper error checking Read and update JSON files Additional learning resources Interactive in-depth tutorial on Node.js filesystem Source code of the demos Cross platform considerations when working with filesystems fs API reference path API reference Introducing and modules fs path Out of the box, Node.js comes with two built-in modules that you can use to work with the filesystem: and . Let's take a quick look at them to see how they work, and what they can be used for. fs path List directories contents Exploring directories to list the contents and file or filter particular files may sometimes be a bit challenging at the beginning, especially when using the asynchronous API. But instead of a plain explanation on how to do that, let's code it using a practical example. If you want to follow along, you'll find the code on . this repo Manipulate filesystem paths Sometimes manipulating the filesystem paths can be tricky, especially for cross-platform applications (looking at you, Windows 👀). Let's consider a practical use case like accessing the current file path of your program and see how to construct paths from it. Create files and directories (and check if it already exists) Creating new files is probably the main subject here. You'll have to make sure the folder containing them exist, and create it if it doesn't. The logic for checking whether files or folders exist may be a bit different from what you may be used to, so let's check that too. Read and update JSON files Reading a file might seem an easy job, but there's always the tricky question of . When writing text files, Node.js use encoding as the default, but you need to specify it when reading files otherwise you might be in for some surprises. Let's see how it goes for reading and updating JSON files, as it can be quite useful when manipulating app configurations. character encoding UTF-8 What's next We're done for this post, but that doesn't mean that you should stop there. You should consider this post as a practical crash course on using the filesystem with Node.js. And of course, there's a lot more to it than what we can cover under 5 minutes videos. In particular, I would like to bring to your attention potential issues if you're working with , as it's easy to trip over. different OS filesystems If you would like to deepen your knowledge around filesystem manipulation, you can take a look at this . Interactive in-depth tutorial on Node.js filesystem Thanks for reading! Also published at https://dev.to/sinedied/work-with-files-and-directories-in-a-node-js-app-4kh8

How to Work with Files and Directories in a Node.js App

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