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  3. Node.js — Check if a Path is a Socket

Node.js — Check if a Path is a Socket

Interacting with files on your local hard disk is a common task in application development. Node.js comes with the necessary tooling to do so. The Node.js fs core module provides lots of functions to read, write, delete, and interact with files and directories.

This tutorial shows you how to detect whether a given path on your local hard disk points to a socket. We’re also creating an isSocket(path) utility function which you could use in your project.

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Determine Whether a Path Points to a Socket

Node.js fs core module ships all the required functionality to check whether a given path resolves to a socket. First, you need to retrieve the Stats instance of the given path. From there, you can use the stats.isSocket() method to detect if the file type matches a socket.

Here’s the isSocket utility method that you could use in your project:

import { stat } from 'node:fs/promises'

/**
 * Determine whether the given `path` points to a socket.
 *
 * @param {String} path
 *
 * @returns {Boolean}
 */
async function isSocket(path) {  
  const stats = await Fs.stat(path)

  return stats.isSocket()
}

await isSocket('/var/run/docker.sock')  
// true

await isSocket('./node_modules')  
// false

We have related tutorials here on Future Studio to this tutorial. You might be interested in one of the following articles:

Use the @supercharge/fs Package

I’m the maintainer of the @supercharge/fs package providing convenient file system utilities. This package comes with a handy isSocket(path) method determining whether the given path points to a socket file on your local hard disk:

import Fs from '@supercharge/fs'

await Fs.isSocket('./existing-file.txt')  
// true

await Fs.isSocket('./node_modules')  
// false

Enjoy!

Mentioned Resources

Marcus Pöhls

Marcus is a fullstack JS developer. He’s passionate about the hapi framework for Node.js and loves to build web apps and APIs. Creator of Futureflix and the “learn hapi” learning path.

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