How to get a list of files in a directory using node.js

Nick Scialli • May 24, 2021 • 🚀 1 minute read

Automation is your friend. Let’s use node.js to automatically get a list of files in a directory.

First, let’s quickly create a few files in our current directory and then an index.js file:

touch file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt index.js

Next up, let’s edit the index.js file. We will use the fs (file system) module, which we have to import.

const fs = require('fs');

At this point, we have a couple options: we can get the files asynchronously, which means we’ll need a callback function, or we can get the files synchronously.

fs.readdir (asynchronously)

fs.readdir takes two arguments: the file path to the directory you want to read and then a callback function. The callback function takes an error argument in first spot and a list of files in the second spot.

const fs = require('fs');

fs.readdir('./', (err, files) => {
  if (err) {
    return console.error(err);
  }
  console.log(files);
  // ["file1.txt", "file2.txt", "file3.txt", "index.js"]
});

Assuming there are no errors, this lists our three text files and the index.js file in the current directory.

fs.readdirSync (synchronously)

fs.readdirSync has a simpler interface, but there are a couple downsides: 1) we end up blocking the execution of future code until the directory read is complete and 2) we have to make sure we handle any errors using try/catch.

const fs = require('fs');

try {
  console.log(fs.readdirSync('./'));
  // ["file1.txt", "file2.txt", "file3.txt", "index.js"]
} catch (e) {
  console.error(e);
}

And those are two quick ways to get a list of files in a directory using node.js!