Node js, express delete file at path

Question

I have a photo model:

var photoSchema = mongoose.Schema({
    name: { type: String},
    path: { type: String},
    vehicle: { type: ObjectId, ref: 'Vehicle' }
  });

A photo is deleted with the route:

app.delete('/api/photos/:id/delete', photos.delete (app.get('photos')));

I can delete the photo from mongo using:

exports.deletePhoto = function (dir) {
  function (req, res, next) {
    var id = req.params.id;
    Photos.delete (id, function (err) {
      if (err) return next (err);
      return res.send ({
        status: "200",
        responseType: "string",
        response: "success"
      });
    });
  };
};

The photo is saved on disk at

app.set('photos', __dirname + '/public/photos');

How do I delete the photo from disk in the deletePhoto function?

Answer 1

You can do as following:

Router

app.delete('/api/photos/:id', photos.deletePhoto);

It follows REST api norms

Exports

exports.deletePhoto = function (req, res) {
  Photos.remove({_id: req.params.id}, function(err, photo) {
    if(err) { 
       return res.send({status: "200", response: "fail"});
    }
    fs.unlink(photo.path, function() {
      res.send ({
        status: "200",
        responseType: "string",
        response: "success"
      });     
    });
 }); 
};

Answer 2

You can delete a file in node with fs.unlink().