path join vs path resolve with dirname

Question

Is there a difference when using both path join and path resolve with   dirname for resolving absolute path in Node js  Should one of them be preferred when being used like that  absolute path resolutions are 90  of use cases   I e  const absolutePath   path join   dirname  some  dir    vs  const absolutePath   path resolve   dirname  some  dir    Both methods normalize path

User · Accepted Answer

Yes there is a difference between the functions but the way you are using them in this case will result in the same outcome.

path.join returns a normalized path by merging two paths together. It can return an absolute path, but it doesn't necessarily always do so.

For instance:

path.join('app/libs/oauth', '/../ssl')

resolves to app/libs/ssl

path.resolve, on the other hand, will resolve to an absolute path.

For instance, when you run:

path.resolve('bar', '/foo');

The path returned will be /foo since that is the first absolute path that can be constructed.

However, if you run:

path.resolve('/bar/bae', '/foo', 'test');

The path returned will be /foo/test again because that is the first absolute path that can be formed from right to left.

If you don't provide a path that specifies the root directory then the paths given to the resolve function are appended to the current working directory. So if your working directory was /home/mark/project/:

path.resolve('test', 'directory', '../back');

resolves to

/home/mark/project/test/back

Using __dirname is the absolute path to the directory containing the source file. When you use path.resolve or path.join they will return the same result if you give the same path following __dirname. In such cases it's really just a matter of preference.

User · Answer

From the doc for path resolve   The resulting path is normalized and trailing slashes are removed unless the path is resolved to the root directory   But path join keeps trailing slashes So   dirname        path resolve   dirname   foo          foo  path join   dirname   foo          foo

User · Answer

const absolutePath   path join   dirname  some  dir    vs  const absolutePath   path resolve   dirname  some  dir    path join will concatenate   dirname which is the directory name of the current file concatenated with values of some and dir with platform-specific separator  Whereas path resolve will process   dirname  some and dir i e  from right to left prepending it by processing it  If any of the values of some or dir corresponds to a root path then the previous path will be omitted and process rest by considering it as root In order to better understand the concept let me explain both a little bit more detail as follows - The path join and path resolve are two different methods or functions of the path module provided by nodejs  Where both accept a list of paths but the difference comes in the result i e  how they process these paths  path join concatenates all given path segments together using the platform-specific separator as a delimiter  then normalizes the resulting path  While the path resolve   process the sequence of paths from right to left  with each subsequent path prepended until an absolute path is constructed  When no arguments supplied The following example will help you to clearly understand both concepts - My filename is index js and the current working directory is E  MyFolder Pjtz node const path   require  path     console log  quot path join      quot   path join        outputs   console log  quot path resolve      quot   path resolve        outputs current directory or equivalent to   dirname  Result   node index js path join        path resolve      E  MyFolder Pjtz node  path resolve   method will output the absolute path whereas the path join   returns   representing the current working directory if nothing is provided When some root path is passed as arguments const path require  path     console log  quot path join      quot   path join  abc    bcd     console log  quot path resolve      quot  path resolve  abc    bcd      Result i   node index js path join      abc bcd path resolve      E  bcd  path join   only concatenates the input list with platform-specific separator while the path resolve   process the sequence of paths from right to left  with each subsequent path prepended until an absolute path is constructed

[node.js] path.join vs path.resolve with __dirname

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