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

Question

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 1

Just a heads up: if you're planning to perform operations on each file in a directory, try vinyl-fs (which is used by gulp, the streaming build system).

Answer 2

function getFilesRecursiveSync(dir, fileList, optionalFilterFunction) {
    if (!fileList) {
        grunt.log.error("Variable 'fileList' is undefined or NULL.");
        return;
    }
    var files = fs.readdirSync(dir);
    for (var i in files) {
        if (!files.hasOwnProperty(i)) continue;
        var name = dir + '/' + files[i];
        if (fs.statSync(name).isDirectory()) {
            getFilesRecursiveSync(name, fileList, optionalFilterFunction);
        } else {
            if (optionalFilterFunction && optionalFilterFunction(name) !== true)
                continue;
            fileList.push(name);
        }
    }
}

Answer 3

Use npm list-contents module. It reads the contents and sub-contents of the given directory and returns the list of files' and folders' paths.

const list = require('list-contents');

list("./dist",(o)=>{
  if(o.error) throw o.error;
   console.log('Folders: ', o.dirs);
   console.log('Files: ', o.files);
});

Answer 4

Load fs:

const fs = require('fs');

Read files async:

fs.readdir('./dir', function (err, files) {
    // "files" is an Array with files names
});

Read files sync:

var files = fs.readdirSync('./dir');

Answer 5

Get files in all subdirs

function getFiles (dir, files_){
    files_ = files_ || [];
    var files = fs.readdirSync(dir);
    for (var i in files){
        var name = dir + '/' + files[i];
        if (fs.statSync(name).isDirectory()){
            getFiles(name, files_);
        } else {
            files_.push(name);
        }
    }
    return files_;
}

console.log(getFiles('path/to/dir'))

Answer 6

My 2 cents if someone:

Just want to list file names (excluding directories) from a local sub-folder on their project

• ✅ No additional dependencies
• ✅ 1 function
• ✅ Normalize path (Unix vs. Windows)

const fs = require("fs");
const path = require("path");

/**
 * @param {string} relativeName "resources/foo/goo"
 * @return {string[]}
 */
const listFileNames = (relativeName) => {
  try {
    const folderPath = path.join(process.cwd(), ...relativeName.split("/"));
    return fs
      .readdirSync(folderPath, { withFileTypes: true })
      .filter((dirent) => dirent.isFile())
      .map((dirent) => dirent.name.split(".")[0]);
  } catch (err) {
    // ...
  }
};

README.md
package.json
resources
 |-- countries
    |-- usa.yaml
    |-- japan.yaml
    |-- gb.yaml
    |-- provinces
       |-- .........


listFileNames("resources/countries") #=> ["usa", "japan", "gb"]