Copy folder recursively in node.js

Question

Copy folder recursively in node.js

Is there an easier way to copy a folder and all its content without manually doing a sequence of fs.readir , fs.readfile, fs.writefile recursively ?

Just wondering if i'm missing a function which would ideally work like this

fs.copy("/path/to/source/folder","/path/to/destination/folder");

javascript
node.js

Answer 1

You can use ncp module. I think this is what you need

Answer 2

There are some modules that support copying folders with their content. The most popular would be wrench

// Deep-copy an existing directory
wrench.copyDirSyncRecursive('directory_to_copy', 'location_where_copy_should_end_up');

An alternative would be node-fs-extra

fs.copy('/tmp/mydir', '/tmp/mynewdir', function (err) {
  if (err) {
    console.error(err);
  } else {
    console.log("success!");
  }
}); //copies directory, even if it has subdirectories or files

Answer 3

/**
 * Look ma, it's cp -R.
 * @param {string} src The path to the thing to copy.
 * @param {string} dest The path to the new copy.
 */
var copyRecursiveSync = function(src, dest) {
  var exists = fs.existsSync(src);
  var stats = exists && fs.statSync(src);
  var isDirectory = exists && stats.isDirectory();
  if (exists && isDirectory) {
    fs.mkdirSync(dest);
    fs.readdirSync(src).forEach(function(childItemName) {
      copyRecursiveSync(path.join(src, childItemName),
                        path.join(dest, childItemName));
    });
  } else {
    fs.linkSync(src, dest);
  }
};

Answer 4

This is my approach to solve this problem without any extra modules. Just using th built-in fs and path modules.

function copyFileSync( source, target ) {

    var targetFile = target;

    //if target is a directory a new file with the same name will be created
    if ( fs.existsSync( target ) ) {
        if ( fs.lstatSync( target ).isDirectory() ) {
            targetFile = path.join( target, path.basename( source ) );
        }
    }

    fs.createReadStream( source ).pipe( fs.createWriteStream( targetFile ) );
}

function copyFolderRecursiveSync( source, target ) {
    var files = [];

    //check if folder needs to be created or integrated
    var targetFolder = path.join( target, path.basename( source ) );
    if ( !fs.existsSync( targetFolder ) ) {
        fs.mkdirSync( targetFolder );
    }

    //copy
    if ( fs.lstatSync( source ).isDirectory() ) {
        files = fs.readdirSync( source );
        files.forEach( function ( file ) {
            var curSource = path.join( source, file );
            if ( fs.lstatSync( curSource ).isDirectory() ) {
                copyFolderRecursiveSync( curSource, targetFolder );
            } else {
                copyFileSync( curSource, targetFolder );
            }
        } );
    }
}

Answer 5

Since I'm just building a simple node script, I didn't want the users of the script to need to import a bunch of external modules and dependencies, so I put on my thinking cap and did a search for running commands from the bash shell.

This node.js code snippet recursively copies a folder called node-webkit.app to a folder called build:

   child = exec("cp -r node-webkit.app build", function(error, stdout, stderr) {
        sys.print("stdout: " + stdout);
        sys.print("stderr: " + stderr);
        if(error !== null) {
            console.log("exec error: " + error);
        } else {

        }
    });

Thanks to Lance Pollard at dzone for getting me started.

The above snippet is limited to Unix based platforms like Mac OS and Linux, but a similar technique may work for Windows.

Answer 6

This code will work just fine, recursively copying any folder to any location. Windows only.

var child=require("child_process");
function copySync(from,to){
    from=from.replace(/\//gim,"\\");
    to=to.replace(/\//gim,"\\");
    child.exec("xcopy /y /q \""+from+"\\*\" \""+to+"\\\"");
}

Works perfectly for my Text-Based game for creating new players.