Get files recursive with the Node.js File System (FS)

#node #javascript

The File System Promises API

In the following code snippets, I'll be using the fs Promises API.
It's available to you if you're rocking at least Node.js v10.

const { promises: fs } = require("fs");

Separating the directory entries

To be able to separate the entries, we have to explicitly ask for all information about the file type.

const entries = await fs.readdir(path, { withFileTypes: true });

If we now want to separate the entries, we can just do this by calling the isDirectory method.

const folders = entries.filter(entry => entry.isDirectory());
const files = entries.filter(entry => !entry.isDirectory());

Getting the files recursive

If we now combine the previously mentioned ways to separate the files, put everything in a function and call this function recursively for every subdirectory, we are able to get all files within the current directory and all subdirectories.

async function getFiles(path = "./") {
    const entries = await fs.readdir(path, { withFileTypes: true });

    // Get files within the current directory and add a path key to the file objects
    const files = entries
        .filter(entry => !entry.isDirectory())
        .map(file => ({ ...file, path: path + file.name }));

    // Get folders within the current directory
    const folders = entries.filter(entry => entry.isDirectory());

    for (const folder of folders)
        /*
          Add the found files within the subdirectory to the files array by calling the
          current function itself
        */
        files.push(...await getFiles(`${path}${folder.name}/`));

    return files;
}