Delete (unlink) files matching a regex

Question

Delete (unlink) files matching a regex

I want to delete several files from a directory, matching a regex. Something like this:

// WARNING: not real code
require('fs').unlink(/script\.\d+\.js$/);

Since unlink doesn't support regexes, I'm using this instead:

var fs = require('fs');

fs.readdir('.', function (error, files)
{
    if (error) throw error;

    files.filter(function (fileName)
    {
        return /script\.\d+\.js$/.test(fileName);
    })
    .forEach(fs.unlink);
});

which works, but IMO is a little more complex than it should be.

Is there a better built-in way to delete files that match a regex (or even just use wildcards)?

javascript
node.js
file-io
filesystems

Answer 1

You can look into glob https://npmjs.org/package/glob

require("glob").glob("*.txt", function (er, files) { ... });
//or
files = require("glob").globSync("*.txt");

glob internally uses minimatch. It works by converting glob expressions into JavaScript RegExp objects. https://github.com/isaacs/minimatch

You can do whatever you want with the matched files in the callback (or in case of globSync the returned object).

Answer 2

The answer could depend on your environment. It looks like you are running on node.js. A quick perusal of the node.js documentation suggests there is no "built in" way to do this, i.e., there isn't a single function call that will do this for you. The next best thing might involve a small number of function calls. As I wrote in my comment, I don't think there's any easy way to make your suggested answer much briefer just relying on the standard node.js function calls. That is, if I were in your shoes, I would go with the solution you already suggested (though slightly cleaned up).

One alternative is to go to the shell, e.g.,

var exec = require('child_process').exec;
exec('ls | grep "script[[:digit:]]\\\+.js" | xargs rm');

Personally, I would strongly prefer your offered solution over this gobbledygook, but maybe you're shooting for something different.