No such file or directory... Problem with read file using fs in node.js

Question

I have a little problem, I'm trying to read a .txt file in node.js app using fs library.

My directory tree looks like this:

app/controller/appController.js
app/data/string.txt

My code in appController script looks like this:

const fs = require('fs')

let data = fs.readFileSync('../data/string.txt', 'utf8');

and I'm getting error:

Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '../data/string.txt'

 errno: -4058,
  syscall: 'open',
  code: 'ENOENT',
  path: '../data/string.txt'

Naturally, I've installed fs library.

I was trying conver including fs library to ES module.

import { readFileSync } from 'fs';

but it doesn't work.

When I've moved .txt file to directory where is appController it's still not working.

Answer 1

Relative file paths are resolved with the current working directory for the process, not with the directory of the module your code is in.

You can resolve a path relative to the module directory (in a CommonJS module) by using __dirname (which is the current module's path) like this:

let data = fs.readFileSync(__dirname + '/../data/string.txt', 'utf8');