How to create a directory if it doesn't exist using Node.js?

Question

Is this the right way to create a directory if it doesn\'t exist. It should have full permission for the script and readable by others.

var dir = __dirname +         


        

Answer 1

The mkdir method has the ability to recursively create any directories in a path that don't exist, and ignore the ones that do.

From the Node v10/11 docs:

// Creates /tmp/a/apple, regardless of whether `/tmp` and /tmp/a exist.
fs.mkdir('/tmp/a/apple', { recursive: true }, (err) => {
    if (err) throw err;
});

NOTE: You'll need to import the built-in fs module first.

Now here's a little more robust example that leverages native ES Modules (with flag enabled and .mjs extension), handles non-root paths, and accounts for full pathnames:

import fs from 'fs';
import path from 'path';

createDirectories(pathname) {
   const __dirname = path.resolve();
   pathname = pathname.replace(/^\.*\/|\/?[^\/]+\.[a-z]+|\/$/g, ''); // Remove leading directory markers, and remove ending /file-name.extension
   fs.mkdir(path.resolve(__dirname, pathname), { recursive: true }, e => {
       if (e) {
           console.error(e);
       } else {
           console.log('Success');
       }
    });
}

You can use it like createDirectories('/components/widget/widget.js');.

And of course, you'd probably want to get more fancy by using promises with async/await to leverage file creation in a more readable synchronous-looking way when the directories are created; but, that's beyond the question's scope.