node.js remove file

Question

How do I delete a file with node.js?

http://nodejs.org/api/fs.html#fs_fs_rename_oldpath_newpath_callback

I don\'t see a remove command?

Answer 1

2019 and Node 10+ is here. Below the version using sweet async/await way.

Now no need to wrap fs.unlink into Promises nor to use additional packages (like fs-extra) anymore.

Just use native fs Promises API.

const fs = require('fs').promises;

(async () => {
  try {
    await fs.unlink('~/any/file');
  } catch (e) {
    // file doesn't exist, no permissions, etc..
    // full list of possible errors is here 
    // http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/unlink.2.html#ERRORS
    console.log(e);
  }
})();

Here is fsPromises.unlink spec from Node docs.

Also please note that fs.promises API marked as experimental in Node 10.x.x (but works totally fine, though), and no longer experimental since 11.14.0.

Answer 2

You can call fs.unlink(path, callback) for Asynchronous unlink(2) or fs.unlinkSync(path) for Synchronous unlink(2).
Where path is file-path which you want to remove.

For example we want to remove discovery.docx file from c:/book directory. So my file-path is c:/book/discovery.docx. So code for removing that file will be,

var fs = require('fs');
var filePath = 'c:/book/discovery.docx'; 
fs.unlinkSync(filePath);

Answer 3

You may use fs.unlink(path, callback) function. Here is an example of the function wrapper with "error-back" pattern:

// Dependencies.
const fs = require('fs');

// Delete a file.
const deleteFile = (filePath, callback) => {
  // Unlink the file.
  fs.unlink(filePath, (error) => {
    if (!error) {
      callback(false);
    } else {
      callback('Error deleting the file');
    }
  })
};

Answer 4

It's very easy with fs.

var fs = require('fs');
try{
 var sourceUrls = "/sampleFolder/sampleFile.txt";
 fs.unlinkSync(sourceUrls);
}catch(err){
 console.log(err);
}

Answer 5

Here is a small snippet of I made for this purpose,

var fs = require('fs');
var gutil = require('gulp-util');

fs.exists('./www/index.html', function(exists) {
  if(exists) {
    //Show in green
    console.log(gutil.colors.green('File exists. Deleting now ...'));
    fs.unlink('./www/index.html');
  } else {
    //Show in red
    console.log(gutil.colors.red('File not found, so not deleting.'));
  }
});

Answer 6

As the accepted answer, use fs.unlink to delete files.

But according to Node.js documentation

Using fs.stat() to check for the existence of a file before calling fs.open(), fs.readFile() or fs.writeFile() is not recommended. Instead, user code should open/read/write the file directly and handle the error raised if the file is not available.

To check if a file exists without manipulating it afterwards, fs.access() is recommended.

to check files can be deleted or not, Use fs.access instead

fs.access('/etc/passwd', fs.constants.R_OK | fs.constants.W_OK, (err) => {
  console.log(err ? 'no access!' : 'can read/write');
});