What is detect-file?
The detect-file npm package is designed to help developers determine if a file exists in a given path. It provides a simple and efficient way to check for the presence of files without having to manually handle file system operations. This can be particularly useful in build scripts, file validation processes, or any scenario where ensuring the existence of a file is necessary.
What are detect-file's main functionalities?
Check if a file exists
This feature allows you to check if a specific file exists at a given path. The function returns a boolean indicating the presence of the file.
const detectFile = require('detect-file');
const filePath = 'path/to/your/file.txt';
const exists = detectFile(filePath);
if (exists) {
console.log('File exists.');
} else {
console.log('File does not exist.');
}
Other packages similar to detect-file
fs-extra
fs-extra is a package that builds on the native fs module, providing additional methods to interact with the file system. It includes a method called 'pathExists' which can be used to check if a file exists, similar to detect-file. However, fs-extra offers a broader range of file system operations, making it more versatile.
file-exists
file-exists is another npm package that offers functionality similar to detect-file, specifically focused on checking the existence of files. While both packages serve a similar purpose, file-exists provides both synchronous and asynchronous APIs, giving developers more flexibility in how they perform the check.
detect-file

Detects if a file exists and returns the resolved filepath.
Install
Install with npm:
$ npm install --save detect-file
Install with yarn:
$ yarn add detect-file
Usage
var detect = require('detect-file');
API
Detect the given filepath
if it exists.
Params
filepath
{String}: filepath to detect.
options
{Object}: Additional options.
options.nocase
{Boolean}: Set this to true
to force case-insensitive filename checks. This is useful on case sensitive file systems.
returns
{String}: Returns the detected filepath if it exists, otherwise returns null
.
Example
var res = detect('package.json');
console.log(res);
var res = detect('fake-file.json');
console.log(res)
Case sensitive file systems
When using the nocase
option, this library will attempt to detect the filepath with the following methods:
- Try to read all files in the
filepath
using fs.readdirSync
. If successful and filepath
is a directory, return the filepath
.
- Try to read all files in the
filepath
's directory using fs.readdirSync
. If successful, do case insensitive comparasions of the filepath
to the files in filepath
's directory.
About
Related projects
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Contributing
Pull requests and stars are always welcome. For bugs and feature requests, please create an issue.
Building docs
(This project's readme.md is generated by verb, please don't edit the readme directly. Any changes to the readme must be made in the .verb.md readme template.)
To generate the readme, run the following command:
$ npm install -g verbose/verb
Running tests
Running and reviewing unit tests is a great way to get familiarized with a library and its API. You can install dependencies and run tests with the following command:
$ npm install && npm test
Author
Brian Woodward
License
Copyright © 2017, Brian Woodward.
Released under the MIT License.
This file was generated by verb-generate-readme, v0.6.0, on August 05, 2017.