[javascript] Create Directory When Writing To File In Node.js

I've been tinkering with Node.js and found a little problem. I've got a script which resides in a directory called data. I want the script to write some data to a file in a subdirectory within the data subdirectory. However I am getting the following error:

{ [Error: ENOENT, open 'D:\data\tmp\test.txt'] errno: 34, code: 'ENOENT', path: 'D:\\data\\tmp\\test.txt' }

The code is as follows:

var fs = require('fs');
fs.writeFile("tmp/test.txt", "Hey there!", function(err) {
    if(err) {
        console.log(err);
    } else {
        console.log("The file was saved!");
    }
}); 

Can anybody help me in finding out how to make Node.js create the directory structure if it does not exits for writing to a file?

With node-fs-extra you can do it easily.

Install it

npm install --save fs-extra

Then use the outputFile method. Its documentation says:

Almost the same as writeFile (i.e. it overwrites), except that if the parent directory does not exist, it's created.

You can use it in three ways:

Callback style

const fse = require('fs-extra');

fse.outputFile('tmp/test.txt', 'Hey there!', err => {
  if(err) {
    console.log(err);
  } else {
    console.log('The file was saved!');
  }
})

Using Promises

If you use promises, and I hope so, this is the code:

fse.outputFile('tmp/test.txt', 'Hey there!')
   .then(() => {
       console.log('The file was saved!');
   })
   .catch(err => {
       console.error(err)
   });

Sync version

If you want a sync version, just use this code:

fse.outputFileSync('tmp/test.txt', 'Hey there!')

For a complete reference, check the outputFile documentation and all node-fs-extra supported methods.

My advise is: try not to rely on dependencies when you can easily do it with few lines of codes

Here's what you're trying to achieve in 14 lines of code:

fs.isDir = function(dpath) {
    try {
        return fs.lstatSync(dpath).isDirectory();
    } catch(e) {
        return false;
    }
};
fs.mkdirp = function(dirname) {
    dirname = path.normalize(dirname).split(path.sep);
    dirname.forEach((sdir,index)=>{
        var pathInQuestion = dirname.slice(0,index+1).join(path.sep);
        if((!fs.isDir(pathInQuestion)) && pathInQuestion) fs.mkdirSync(pathInQuestion);
    });
};

If you don't want to use any additional package, you can call the following function before creating your file:

var path = require('path'),
    fs = require('fs');

function ensureDirectoryExistence(filePath) {
  var dirname = path.dirname(filePath);
  if (fs.existsSync(dirname)) {
    return true;
  }
  ensureDirectoryExistence(dirname);
  fs.mkdirSync(dirname);
}

I just published this module because I needed this functionality.

https://www.npmjs.org/package/filendir

It works like a wrapper around Node.js fs methods. So you can use it exactly the same way you would with fs.writeFile and fs.writeFileSync (both async and synchronous writes)

Shameless plug alert!

You will have to check for each directory in the path structure you want and create it manually if it doesn't exist. All the tools to do so are already there in Node's fs module, but you can do all of that simply with my mkpath module: https://github.com/jrajav/mkpath

Since I cannot comment yet, I'm posting an enhanced answer based on @tiago-peres-frança fantastic solution (thanks!). His code does not make directory in a case where only the last directory is missing in the path, e.g. the input is "C:/test/abc" and "C:/test" already exists. Here is a snippet that works:

function mkdirp(filepath) {
    var dirname = path.dirname(filepath);

    if (!fs.existsSync(dirname)) {
        mkdirp(dirname);
    }

    fs.mkdirSync(filepath);
}

Same answer as above, but with async await and ready to use!

const fs = require('fs/promises');
const path = require('path');

async function isExists(path) {
  try {
    await fs.access(path);
    return true;
  } catch {
    return false;
  }
};

async function writeFile(filePath, data) {
  try {
    const dirname = path.dirname(filePath);
    const exist = await isExists(dirname);
    if (!exist) {
      await fs.mkdir(dirname, {recursive: true});
    }
    
    await fs.writeFile(filePath, data, 'utf8');
  } catch (err) {
    throw new Error(err);
  }
}

Example:

(async () {
  const data = 'Hello, World!';
  await writeFile('dist/posts/hello-world.html', data);
})();

first taking the full path including directory and extracting the directory

//Just for the sake of example
cwd=process.cwd()
filendir=path.resolve(cwd,'_site/assets/text','node.txt')

// Extracting directory name
mkdir=path.dirname(filendir)

Now make the directory, add option recursive:true as stated by @David Weldon

fs.mkdirSync(mkdir,{recursive:true})

Then make the file

data='Some random text'
fs.writeFileSync(filendir,data)