node.js fs.readdir recursive directory search

Question

Any ideas on an async directory search using fs.readdir? I realise that we could introduce recursion and call the read directory function with the next directory to read, bu

Answer 1

A. Have a look at the file module. It has a function called walk:

file.walk(start, callback)

Navigates a file tree, calling callback for each directory, passing in (null, dirPath, dirs, files).

This may be for you! And yes, it is async. However, I think you would have to aggregate the full path's yourself, if you needed them.

B. An alternative, and even one of my favourites: use the unix find for that. Why do something again, that has already been programmed? Maybe not exactly what you need, but still worth checking out:

var execFile = require('child_process').execFile;
execFile('find', [ 'somepath/' ], function(err, stdout, stderr) {
  var file_list = stdout.split('\n');
  /* now you've got a list with full path file names */
});

Find has a nice build-in caching mechanism that makes subsequent searches very fast, as long as only few folder have changed.