node how to remove a directory if exists?

Question

I'm trying to remove node_modules directory if it exists and is not empty

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

module.exports = function(){
    var modulesPath = '../modules';

    fs.readdirSync(modulesPath)
        .forEach(function(dir) {
            var location = path.join(dir, 'node_modules');
            if (fs.existsSync(location)){
                fs.rmdir(location);
            }
        });
};

However, fs.rmdir command unfortunately removes directory only if there are no files there.

NodeJS doesn’t have an easy way to force the removal

Answer 1

A couple of things:

where does your next(err) function come from?

Also remember that rmdir in node.js documentation for the function you are calling is this: https://nodejs.org/api/fs.html#fs_fs_rmdir_path_callback

Asynchronous rmdir(2)

The posix definition of this is:

deletes a directory, which must be empty.

Make sure your directory is empty, which in this case it seems it would not be.

There is a gist here the deals with non-empty directories:

https://gist.github.com/tkihira/2367067

var fs = require("fs");
var path = require("path");

var rmdir = function(dir) {
    var list = fs.readdirSync(dir);
    for(var i = 0; i < list.length; i++) {
        var filename = path.join(dir, list[i]);
        var stat = fs.statSync(filename);

        if(filename == "." || filename == "..") {
            // pass these files
        } else if(stat.isDirectory()) {
            // rmdir recursively
            rmdir(filename);
        } else {
            // rm fiilename
            fs.unlinkSync(filename);
        }
    }
    fs.rmdirSync(dir);
};

And a node module here:

https://github.com/dreamerslab/node.rmdir

These might get you on the right track.

Answer 2

Two Liner:

if (fs.existsSync(dir)) {
  fs.rmdirSync(dir, {recursive: true})
}