Checking file existence and stats in Node.js - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Checking file existence and stats

📖 Scenario: You are building a small Node.js script to check if a file exists and get its details like size and creation date. This is useful when you want to verify files before processing them.

🎯 Goal: Create a Node.js script that checks if a file named example.txt exists in the current folder. If it exists, get its size and creation time using Node.js fs module.

📋 What You'll Learn

Use Node.js fs module

Check if example.txt exists

Get file stats if it exists

Extract file size and creation time from stats

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Checking if files exist and reading their details is common in scripts that process files, like backup tools or media managers.

💼 Career

Understanding file system operations with Node.js is important for backend developers and automation engineers.

1

Import the fs module and define the file path

Write a line to import the Node.js fs module using import fs from 'fs'. Then create a constant called filePath and set it to the string './example.txt'.

Node.js

# Import fs module and define filePath
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use ES module syntax to import fs. Define filePath exactly as './example.txt'.

2

Create a variable to check if the file exists

Write a line to create a constant called fileExists that uses fs.existsSync(filePath) to check if the file exists.

Node.js

import fs from 'fs'
const filePath = './example.txt'
# Create fileExists using fs.existsSync
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use fs.existsSync with filePath to check existence.

3

Get file stats if the file exists

Write an if statement that checks if fileExists is true. Inside the block, create a constant called stats and set it to fs.statSync(filePath) to get the file stats.

Node.js

import fs from 'fs'
const filePath = './example.txt'
const fileExists = fs.existsSync(filePath)
# If fileExists is true, get stats using fs.statSync
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use if (fileExists) and inside it call fs.statSync(filePath).

4

Extract and store file size and creation time

Inside the if block, create two constants: fileSize set to stats.size and creationTime set to stats.birthtime.

Node.js

import fs from 'fs'
const filePath = './example.txt'
const fileExists = fs.existsSync(filePath)
if (fileExists) {
    const stats = fs.statSync(filePath)
    # Extract fileSize and creationTime from stats
    # Your code here
}

Need a hint?

Use stats.size and stats.birthtime to get size and creation time.