readdirp

Recursive version of fs.readdir. Exposes a stream API and a promise API.

Supports both ESM and common.js.

npm install readdirp

// Use streams to achieve small RAM & CPU footprint.
// 1) Streams example with for-await.
import readdirp from 'readdirp';
for await (const entry of readdirp('.')) {
  const {path} = entry;
  console.log(`${JSON.stringify({path})}`);
}

// 2) Streams example, non for-await.
// Print out all JS files along with their size within the current folder & subfolders.
import readdirp from 'readdirp';
readdirp('.', {alwaysStat: true, fileFilter: (f) => f.basename.endsWith('.js')})
  .on('data', (entry) => {
    const {path, stats: {size}} = entry;
    console.log(`${JSON.stringify({path, size})}`);
  })
  // Optionally call stream.destroy() in `warn()` in order to abort and cause 'close' to be emitted
  .on('warn', error => console.error('non-fatal error', error))
  .on('error', error => console.error('fatal error', error))
  .on('end', () => console.log('done'));

// 3) Promise example. More RAM and CPU than streams / for-await.
import { readdirpPromise } from 'readdirp';
const files = await readdirpPromise('.');
console.log(files.map(file => file.path));

// Other options.
import readdirp from 'readdirp';
readdirp('test', {
  fileFilter: (f) => f.basename.endsWith('.js'),
  directoryFilter: (d) => d.basename !== '.git',
  // directoryFilter: (di) => di.basename.length === 9
  type: 'files_directories',
  depth: 1
});

API

const stream = readdirp(root[, options]) — Stream API

• Reads given root recursively and returns a stream of entry infos
• Optionally can be used like for await (const entry of stream) with node.js 10+ (asyncIterator).
• on('data', (entry) => {}) entry info for every file / dir.
• on('warn', (error) => {}) non-fatal Error that prevents a file / dir from being processed. Example: inaccessible to the user.
• on('error', (error) => {}) fatal Error which also ends the stream. Example: illegal options where passed.
• on('end') — we are done. Called when all entries were found and no more will be emitted.
• on('close') — stream is destroyed via stream.destroy(). Could be useful if you want to manually abort even on a non fatal error. At that point the stream is no longer readable and no more entries, warning or errors are emitted
• To learn more about streams, consult the very detailed nodejs streams documentation or the stream-handbook

const entries = await readdirp.promise(root[, options]) — Promise API. Returns a list of entry infos.

First argument is awalys root, path in which to start reading and recursing into subdirectories.

options

• fileFilter: filter to include or exclude files
  • Function: a function that takes an entry info as a parameter and returns true to include or false to exclude the entry
• directoryFilter: filter to include/exclude directories found and to recurse into. Directories that do not pass a filter will not be recursed into.
• depth: 5: depth at which to stop recursing even if more subdirectories are found
• type: 'files': determines if data events on the stream should be emitted for 'files' (default), 'directories', 'files_directories', or 'all'. Setting to 'all' will also include entries for other types of file descriptors like character devices, unix sockets and named pipes.
• alwaysStat: false: always return stats property for every file. Default is false, readdirp will return Dirent entries. Setting it to true can double readdir execution time - use it only when you need file size, mtime etc. Cannot be enabled on node <10.10.0.
• lstat: false: include symlink entries in the stream along with files. When true, fs.lstat would be used instead of fs.stat

EntryInfo

Has the following properties:

• path: 'assets/javascripts/react.js': path to the file/directory (relative to given root)
• fullPath: '/Users/dev/projects/app/assets/javascripts/react.js': full path to the file/directory found
• basename: 'react.js': name of the file/directory
• dirent: fs.Dirent: built-in dir entry object - only with alwaysStat: false
• stats: fs.Stats: built in stat object - only with alwaysStat: true

Changelog

• 4.0 (Aug 25, 2024) rewritten in typescript, producing hybrid common.js / esm module.
  • Remove glob support and all dependencies
  • Make sure you're using let {readdirp} = require('readdirp') in common.js
• 3.5 (Oct 13, 2020) disallows recursive directory-based symlinks. Before, it could have entered infinite loop.
• 3.4 (Mar 19, 2020) adds support for directory-based symlinks.
• 3.3 (Dec 6, 2019) stabilizes RAM consumption and enables perf management with highWaterMark option. Fixes race conditions related to for-await looping.
• 3.2 (Oct 14, 2019) improves performance by 250% and makes streams implementation more idiomatic.
• 3.1 (Jul 7, 2019) brings bigint support to stat output on Windows. This is backwards-incompatible for some cases. Be careful. It you use it incorrectly, you'll see "TypeError: Cannot mix BigInt and other types, use explicit conversions".
• 3.0 brings huge performance improvements and stream backpressure support.
• Upgrading 2.x to 3.x:
  • Signature changed from readdirp(options) to readdirp(root, options)
  • Replaced callback API with promise API.
  • Renamed entryType option to type
  • Renamed entryType: 'both' to 'files_directories'
  • EntryInfo
    • Renamed stat to stats
      • Emitted only when alwaysStat: true
      • dirent is emitted instead of stats by default with alwaysStat: false
    • Renamed name to basename
    • Removed parentDir and fullParentDir properties
• Supported node.js versions:
  • 4.x: node 14+
  • 3.x: node 8+
  • 2.x: node 0.6+

License

Copyright (c) 2012-2019 Thorsten Lorenz, Paul Miller (https://paulmillr.com)

MIT License, see LICENSE file.