node.js - Reading all files in a directory, store them in objects, and send the object

Question

I do not know if this is possible, but here goes. And working with callbacks makes it even more difficult.

I have a directory with html files that I want to send back to the client in Object chunks with node.js and socket.io.

All my files are in /tmpl

So socket needs to read all the files in /tmpl.

for each file it has to store the data in an object with the filename as the key, and the content as the value.

  var data;
  // this is wrong because it has to loop trough all files.
  fs.readFile(__dirname + '/tmpl/filename.html', 'utf8', function(err, html){
      if(err) throw err;
      //filename must be without .html at the end
      data['filename'] = html;
  });
  socket.emit('init', {data: data});

The final callback is also wrong. It has to be called when all the files in the directory are done.

But I do not know how to create the code, anyone know if this is possibel?

Answer 1

So, there are three parts. Reading, storing and sending.

Here's the reading part:

var fs = require('fs');

function readFiles(dirname, onFileContent, onError) {
  fs.readdir(dirname, function(err, filenames) {
    if (err) {
      onError(err);
      return;
    }
    filenames.forEach(function(filename) {
      fs.readFile(dirname + filename, 'utf-8', function(err, content) {
        if (err) {
          onError(err);
          return;
        }
        onFileContent(filename, content);
      });
    });
  });
}

Here's the storing part:

var data = {};
readFiles('dirname/', function(filename, content) {
  data[filename] = content;
}, function(err) {
  throw err;
});

The sending part is up to you. You may want to send them one by one or after reading completion.

If you want to send files after reading completion you should either use sync versions of fs functions or use promises. Async callbacks is not a good style.

Additionally you asked about stripping an extension. You should proceed with questions one by one. Nobody will write a complete solution just for you.