How to check the given path is file or directory in node.js ?

Sometimes there is a need to check whether the given path is a file or directory so that different operations can be performed based on the result. For instance, to log the information of the directory and file separately. 

In Node.js, file handling is handled by the fs module. You can read more about it here. We can check the path for files or directories in Node.js in both Synchronous and Asynchronous ways.

Note: Asynchronous version is usually preferable if you care about application performance. 

Synchronous method: Synchronous operations are great for performing one-time file/directory operations before returning a module. To check the path in a synchronous mode in the fs module, we can use the statSync() method. The fs.statSync(path) method returns the instance of fs.Stats which is assigned to variable stats. A fs.Stats object provides information about a file. The stats.isFile() method returns true if the file path is File, otherwise returns false. The stats.isDirectory() method returns true if the file path is Directory, otherwise returns false.

Example 1: In this example, we will see the use of the Use statSync() method to store the returned instance into a variable named stats.

javascript

// Require the given module
const fs = require('fs');

// Use statSync() method to store the returned
// instance into variable named stats
let stats = fs.statSync(
"/Users/divyarani/Documents/geekforgeeks/geeks.js");

// Use isFile() method to log the result to screen
console.log('is file ? ' + stats.isFile());

stats = fs.statSync(
"/Users/divyarani/Documents/geekforgeeks/geek");

// Use isDirectory() method to log the result to screen
console.log('is directory ? ' + stats.isDirectory());

Output:

is file ? true
is directory ? true

Example 2: In this example, we will see the use of the Use statSync() method to store the returned instance into a variable named stats.

javascript

// Require the given module
const fs = require('fs');

// Use statSync() method to store the returned
// instance into variable named stats
let stats = fs.statSync(
"/Users/divyarani/Documents/geekforgeeks/geek");

// Use isFile() method to log the result to the screen
console.log('is file ? ' + stats.isFile());

stats = fs.statSync(
"/Users/divyarani/Documents/geekforgeeks/geeks.js");

// Use isDirectory() method to log the result to screen
console.log('is directory ? ' + stats.isDirectory());

Output: 

is file ? false
is directory ? false

Asynchronous method: In the Asynchronous version, the code block within the function will be mostly non-blocking to the end-user, and the user will not be prevented to perform different actions for various sub-processes. To check the path in asynchronous mode in the fs module we can use fs.stat() method. The fs.stat() method takes two parameters, the first parameter is the path and the second is the callback function with two parameters, one is for error in case an error occurred and the second parameter is the data retrieved by calling fs.stat() method which is stored in stats variable. The stats.isFile() method returns true if the file path is File, otherwise returns false. The stats.isDirectory() method returns true if the file path is Directory, otherwise returns false. 

Example 1: In this example, we will see the use of the stat() method.

javascript

// Require the given module
const fs = require('fs'),
    path = "/Users/divyarani/Documents/geekforgeeks/geek"

// Use stat() method
fs.stat(path, (err, stats) => {
    if (!err) {
        if (stats.isFile()) {
            console.log('is file ? ' + stats.isFile());
        }
        else if (stats.isDirectory()) {
            console.log('is directory? ' + stats.isDirectory());
        }
    }
    else
        throw err;
});

Output:

is directory? true

Example 2: In this example, we will see the use of the stat() method.

javascript

// Require the given module
const fs = require('fs'),
    path = "/Users/divyarani/Documents/geekforgeeks/geeks.js"

// Use stat() method
fs.stat(path, (err, stats) => {
    if (!err) {
        if (stats.isFile()) {
            console.log('is file ? ' + stats.isFile());
        }

        else if (stats.isDirectory()) {
            console.log('is directory? ' + stats.isDirectory());
        }
    }
    else
        throw err;
});

Output:

is file ? true