Unlink

Remove a directory entry.

Usage

var unlink = require( '@stdlib/fs/unlink' );

unlink( path, clbk )

Asynchronously removes a directory entry specified by path.

var join = require( 'path' ).join;
var fpath = join( __dirname, 'examples', 'fixtures', 'file.txt' );

unlink( fpath, done );

function done( error ) {
    if ( error ) {
        throw error;
    }
}

unlink.sync( path )

Synchronously removes a directory entry specified by path.

var join = require( 'path' ).join;
var fpath = join( __dirname, 'examples', 'fixtures', 'file.txt' );

var err = unlink.sync( fpath );
if ( err instanceof Error ) {
    throw err;
}

Notes

  • If a provided path is a symbolic link, the function removes the symbolic link named by the path and does not affect any file or directory named by the contents of the symbolic link. Otherwise, the function removes the link named by the provided path and decrements the link count of the file referenced by the link.

    When a file's link count becomes 0 and no process has the file open, the space occupied by the file is freed and the file is no longer accessible. If one or more processes have the file open when the last link is removed, the link is removed before the function returns; however, the removal of file contents is postponed until all references to the file are closed.

    If the path refers to a socket, FIFO, or device, processes which have the object open may continue to use it.

  • The path argument should not be a directory. To remove a directory, use rmdir().

  • The difference between unlink.sync and fs.unlinkSync() is that fs.unlinkSync() will throw if an error is encountered (e.g., if given a non-existent path) and this API will return an error. Hence, the following anti-pattern

    var fs = require( 'fs' );

// Check for path existence to prevent an error being thrown...
if ( fs.existsSync( '/path/to' ) ) {
    fs.unlinkSync( '/path/to/file.txt' );
}

    can be replaced by an approach which addresses existence via error handling.

    var unlink = require( '@stdlib/fs/unlink' );

// Explicitly handle the error...
var err = unlink.sync( '/path/to/file.txt' );
if ( err instanceof Error ) {
    // You choose what to do...
    throw err;
}

Examples

var join = require( 'path' ).join;
var readFile = require( '@stdlib/fs/read-file' ).sync;
var writeFile = require( '@stdlib/fs/write-file' ).sync;
var exists = require( '@stdlib/fs/exists' ).sync;
var unlink = require( '@stdlib/fs/unlink' ).sync;

var src = join( __dirname, 'examples', 'fixtures', 'file.txt' );
var dest = join( __dirname, 'examples', 'tmp.txt' );

// Create a temporary file:
writeFile( dest, readFile( src ) );

// Confirm that the temporary file exists:
console.log( exists( dest ) );
// => true

// Delete the temporary file:
unlink( dest );

// Confirm that the temporary file no longer exists:
console.log( exists( dest ) );
// => false

CLI

Usage

Usage: unlink [options] <path>

Options:

  -h,    --help                Print this message.
  -V,    --version             Print the package version.

Notes

  • Relative paths are resolved relative to the current working directory.
  • Errors are written to stderr.

Examples

$ unlink ./examples/fixtures/file.txt

See Also

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