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  3. Node.js — How to Create an Empty File

Node.js — How to Create an Empty File

You may know the touch command from your command line which creates an empty file if it doesn’t exist.

This tutorial shows you how to implement touch in Node.js. You’ll implement a function that creates an empty file using Node.js. You’ll walk through an asynchronous and synchronous way to ensure a file on your file system.

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Asynchronously Ensure a File

This asynchronous way of creating an empty file uses the helper library fs-extra. fs-extra provides the same API as the Node.js fs module and additional convenience methods.

The fs-extra package includes the extra ensureFile(path) method which creates the file at path:

const Fs = require('fs-extra')

async function ensureFile (path) {  
  await Fs.ensureFile(path)
}

A nice benefit of ensureFile is that it creates all missing directories along the path. It handles the creation of missing directories automatically. Sweet!

Also, it won’t override an existing file.

Synchronously Ensure a File

You can implement the synchronous approach with modules already integrated into the fs module from Node.js:

const Fs = require('fs')

function ensureFileSync (path) {  
  Fs.closeSync(
    Fs.openSync(path, 'a')
  )
}

Notice: the synchronous way will block the Node.js event loop while traversing the file system and creating the file. Please consider using the asynchronous approach.

openSync(path)returns a file descriptor:

const Fs = require('fs')

function ensureFileSync (path) {  
  const fileDescriptor = Fs.openSync(path, 'a')

  return fileDescriptor
}

If you need the file descriptor for further processing, remember to close it when you finish all your handling. This won’t leave created file descriptors open.

Mentioned Resources

  • fs-extra Node.js package: extra methods for the fs object like copy(), remove(), mkdirs()

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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