How do you get a list of the names of all files present in a directory in Node.js?

resopollution picture resopollution · Apr 28, 2010 · Viewed 985.3k times · Source

I'm trying to get a list of the names of all the files present in a directory using Node.js. I want output that is an array of filenames. How can I do this?

Answer

Christian C. Salvadó picture Christian C. Salvadó · Apr 28, 2010

You can use the fs.readdir or fs.readdirSync methods.

fs.readdir

const testFolder = './tests/';
const fs = require('fs');

fs.readdir(testFolder, (err, files) => {
  files.forEach(file => {
    console.log(file);
  });
});

fs.readdirSync

const testFolder = './tests/';
const fs = require('fs');

fs.readdirSync(testFolder).forEach(file => {
  console.log(file);
});

The difference between the two methods, is that the first one is asynchronous, so you have to provide a callback function that will be executed when the read process ends.

The second is synchronous, it will return the file name array, but it will stop any further execution of your code until the read process ends.