writeFile no such file or directory

Question

I have a file(data.file an image), I would like to save this image. Now an image with the same name could exist before it. I would like to overwrite if so or create it if it does not exist since before. I read that the flag "w" should do this.

Code:

fs.writeFile('/avatar/myFile.png', data.file, {
  flag: "w"
}, function(err) {
  if (err) {
    return console.log(err);
  }
  console.log("The file was saved!");
});

Error:

[Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/avatar/myFile.png']
errno: -2,
  code: 'ENOENT',
    syscall: 'open',
      path: '/avatar/myFile.png'

score 146 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 15 '16 at 12:43

146

This is probably because you are trying to write to root of file system instead of your app directory '/avatar/myFile.png' -> __dirname + '/avatar/myFile.png' should do the trick, also check if folder exists. node.js won't create parent folder for you.

answered Jan 15 '16 at 12:43

SergeS

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1

Knew it was something trivial, ta. – basickarl Jan 15 '16 at 12:44
36

The issue I was having was the parent directory didn't exist. Thanks for the tip – C. Louis S. Apr 11 '16 at 18:24
how to write the file in different machine in node js. I am tried with path instead of url(http://example.com/files/) but its given the same error. Is possible to upload the file in different server? – Vasanth Apr 03 '18 at 12:13
To do so you need to use proper package to upload via SFTP / FTP / whatever. Or you need to have other server linked (So it is accessible via file system, on windows it should have disk letters assigned, on linux mounted) – SergeS Apr 04 '18 at 14:08

Lukas Liesis · Answer 2 · 2019-12-29T07:09:22.863

46

Many of us are getting this error because parent path does not exist. E.g. you have /tmp directory available but there is no folder "foo" and you are writing to /tmp/foo/bar.txt.

To solve this, you can use mkdirp - adapted from How to write file if parent folder doesn't exist?

Option A) Using Callbacks

const mkdirp = require('mkdirp');
const fs = require('fs');
const getDirName = require('path').dirname;

function writeFile(path, contents, cb) {
  mkdirp(getDirName(path), function (err) {
    if (err) return cb(err);

    fs.writeFile(path, contents, cb);
  });
}

Option B) Using Async/Await

Or if you have an environment where you can use async/await:

const mkdirp = require('mkdirp');
const fs = require('fs');

const writeFile = async (path, content) => {
  await mkdirp(path);
  fs.writeFileSync(path, content);
}

edited Dec 29 '19 at 07:09

answered Jun 19 '18 at 11:49

Lukas Liesis

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Question, why await `writeFileSync`? – eestein Feb 27 '19 at 13:12
@eestein good point, no need. Updated. But there is no difference in this case while fs.writeFileSync is just converted to the resolved promise which does nothing in this context. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Operators/await – Lukas Liesis Feb 28 '19 at 10:32
2

`mkdirp` has been made redundant by the addition of a `recursive` option for `fs.mkDir`. [Docs](https://nodejs.org/api/fs.html#fs_fs_mkdir_path_options_callback). – Fdebijl Apr 25 '20 at 23:42

score 20 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 30 '17 at 18:37

20

I solved a similar problem where I was trying to create a file with a name that contained characters that are not allowed. Watch out for that as well because it gives the same error message.

answered Jul 30 '17 at 18:37

Svetlin Totev

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Thanks for this! That's exactly why I was getting it. – Troy Gizzi Mar 31 '22 at 18:40
This answer should be higher, for visibility purposes. I was in a cross-platform setup and Jenkins was killing my jobs due to this exact thing. The invalid chard on Windows were the issue. Bless you man! – iamdanchiv Jan 26 '23 at 15:00

score 18 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 11 '19 at 18:58

I ran into this error when creating some nested folders asynchronously right before creating the files. The destination folders wouldn't always be created before promises to write the files started. I solved this by using mkdirSync instead of 'mkdir' in order to create the folders synchronously.

try {
    fs.mkdirSync(DestinationFolder, { recursive: true } );
} catch (e) {
    console.log('Cannot create folder ', e);
}
fs.writeFile(path.join(DestinationFolder, fileName), 'File Content Here', (err) => {
    if (err) throw err;
});

This is solution and the answer below are very closely related — ThisGuyCantEven, Jun 30 '20 at 14:20

score 9 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 27 '18 at 04:52

9

Actually, the error message for the file names that are not allowed in Linux/ Unix system comes up with the same error which is extremely confusing. Please check the file name if it has any of the reserved characters. These are the reserved /, >, <, |, :, & characters for Linux / Unix system. For a good read follow this link.

answered Oct 27 '18 at 04:52

Masihur

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This resolved my issue on Windows10 as well - Trying to write a file using Date.toIsoString() in the filename contained colons. Replacing the colons fixed the error. – DShultz May 14 '19 at 14:34

score 7 · Answer 6 · edited Oct 14 '21 at 02:00

7

It tells you that the avatar folder does not exist. Before writing a file into this folder, you need to check that a directory called "avatar" exists and if it doesn't, create it:

   if (!fs.existsSync('/avatar')) {
      fs.mkdirSync('/avatar', { recursive: true});
    }

edited Oct 14 '21 at 02:00

Eldar B.

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answered Oct 12 '21 at 08:54

Abhay Kumar Upadhyay

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score 2 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 30 '20 at 12:16

2

you can use './' as a prefix for your path.

in your example, you will write:

fs.writeFile('./avatar/myFile.png', data.file, (err) => {
  if (err) {
    return console.log(err);
  }
  console.log("The file was saved!");
});

answered Apr 30 '20 at 12:16

ofir_aghai

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1
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score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Jun 26 '19 at 21:13

I had this error because I tried to run:

fs.writeFile(file)
fs.unlink(file)
...lots of code... probably not async issue...
fs.writeFile(file)

in the same script. The exception occurred on the second writeFile call. Removing the first two calls solved the problem.

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered May 26 '20 at 21:26

1

In my case, I use async fs.mkdir() and then, without waiting for this task to complete, I tried to create a file fs.writeFile()...

answered May 26 '20 at 21:26

ktretyak

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score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Mar 03 '22 at 12:25

As SergeS mentioned, using / attempts to write in your system root folder, but instead of using __dirname, which points to the path of the file where writeFile is invoked, you can use process.cwd() to point to the project's directory. Example:

writeFile(`${process.cwd()}/pictures/myFile.png`, data, (err) => {...});

If you want to avoid string concatenations/interpolations, you may also use path.join(process.cwd(), 'pictures', 'myFile.png') (more details, including directory creation, in this digitalocean article).

writeFile no such file or directory

10 Answers10

Option A) Using Callbacks

Option B) Using Async/Await