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

Out of the box

In case you want an object with the directory structure out-of-the-box I highly reccomend you to check directory-tree.

Lets say you have this structure:

photos
│   june
│   └── windsurf.jpg
└── january
    ├── ski.png
    └── snowboard.jpg

const dirTree = require("directory-tree");
const tree = dirTree("/path/to/photos");

Will return:

{
  path: "photos",
  name: "photos",
  size: 600,
  type: "directory",
  children: [
    {
      path: "photos/june",
      name: "june",
      size: 400,
      type: "directory",
      children: [
        {
          path: "photos/june/windsurf.jpg",
          name: "windsurf.jpg",
          size: 400,
          type: "file",
          extension: ".jpg"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      path: "photos/january",
      name: "january",
      size: 200,
      type: "directory",
      children: [
        {
          path: "photos/january/ski.png",
          name: "ski.png",
          size: 100,
          type: "file",
          extension: ".png"
        },
        {
          path: "photos/january/snowboard.jpg",
          name: "snowboard.jpg",
          size: 100,
          type: "file",
          extension: ".jpg"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Custom Object

Otherwise if you want to create an directory tree object with your custom settings have a look at the following snippet. A live example is visible on this codesandbox.

// my-script.js
const fs = require("fs");
const path = require("path");

const isDirectory = filePath => fs.statSync(filePath).isDirectory();
const isFile = filePath => fs.statSync(filePath).isFile();

const getDirectoryDetails = filePath => {
  const dirs = fs.readdirSync(filePath);
  return {
    dirs: dirs.filter(name => isDirectory(path.join(filePath, name))),
    files: dirs.filter(name => isFile(path.join(filePath, name)))
  };
};

const getFilesRecursively = (parentPath, currentFolder) => {
  const currentFolderPath = path.join(parentPath, currentFolder);
  let currentDirectoryDetails = getDirectoryDetails(currentFolderPath);

  const final = {
    current_dir: currentFolder,
    dirs: currentDirectoryDetails.dirs.map(dir =>
      getFilesRecursively(currentFolderPath, dir)
    ),
    files: currentDirectoryDetails.files
  };

  return final;
};

const getAllFiles = relativePath => {
  const fullPath = path.join(__dirname, relativePath);
  const parentDirectoryPath = path.dirname(fullPath);
  const leafDirectory = path.basename(fullPath);

  const allFiles = getFilesRecursively(parentDirectoryPath, leafDirectory);
  return allFiles;
};

module.exports = { getAllFiles };

Then you can simply do:

// another-file.js 

const { getAllFiles } = require("path/to/my-script");

const allFiles = getAllFiles("/path/to/my-directory");