Reading a directory

[s0m3on3]

• Version: 7.4.0
• Subsystem: fs

If you try to read a directory, the behavior will be platform specific:

// linux/windows/os x
fs.readFileSync("node_modules");
// -> Error: EISDIR: illegal operation on a directory, read

// freebsd
fs.readFileSync("node_modules");
// -> <Buffer 03 00 00 ... >

Is it ok? I expected the same result on all platforms

[joyeecheung]

Looks like a doc issue? The docs of fs.open does mention this platform-specific behavior.

Note: The behavior of fs.open() is platform specific for some flags. As such,
opening a directory on OS X and Linux with the 'a+' flag - see example below -
will return an error. In contrast, on Windows and FreeBSD, a file descriptor
will be returned.

// OS X and Linux
fs.open('<directory>', 'a+', (err, fd) => {
  // => [Error: EISDIR: illegal operation on a directory, open <directory>]
});

// Windows and FreeBSD
fs.open('<directory>', 'a+', (err, fd) => {
  // => null, <fd>
});

[Dean-Coakley]

Dumb question - So what exactly should be done about this? 😅

To me it seems the docs already explain the differences quite explicitly, so I don't see what is to be done?

[addaleax]

Dumb question - So what exactly should be done about this?

Definitely not a dumb question. I guess the two options are “close this as working as expected” or “add a note to the readFile(Sync) documentation too”, and I’d personally be okay with either.

[thelostone-mc]

@addaleax Would pull request 12800 seem alright ?

[matejkrajcovic]

@addaleax Could this be closed? It's already fixed in #12800.

[bnoordhuis]

Yes, I'll close. Cheers.