Seb The Cat

Sat Aug 01, 2020 Tips , Errors javascript nodejs error

The fs-jetpack library is a fantastic way to interact with the filesystem in NodeJS.

Be careful, I ended up underestimating its simplicity and made the following mistake!

The Error

:8080/#/:1 Uncaught (in promise) ReferenceError: Cannot access 'cwd' before initialization
    at NotesDirectory.listDirectory (webpack:///./src/background/model/notes-directory.js?:16)
    at :8080/electron/js2c/browser_init.js:233
    at IpcMainImpl.<anonymous> (:8080/electron/js2c/browser_init.js:233)
    at IpcMainImpl.emit (events.js:223)
    at WebContents.<anonymous> (:8080/electron/js2c/browser_init.js:173)
    at WebContents.emit (events.js:223)

The Cause

import fsJetpack from 'fs-jetpack'

const ROOT_PATH = '~/Downloads'

async function getContents() {
  const contents = await fsJetpack.cwd(
    ROOT_PATH
  ).inspectTreeAsync()

  ...
}

The Solution

Don’t be a dope like me. You don’t need to set the current working directory in FSJetpack before inspecting the tree.

Instead, you should just inspect it like so:

import fsJetpack from 'fs-jetpack'

const ROOT_PATH = '~/Downloads'

async function getContents() {
  const contents = await fsJetpack.inspectTreeAsync( // <-- The fix
    ROOT_PATH
  )

  ...
}