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doc: add warning to fs.exists() documentation

Warn against the open-if-exists anti-pattern, it's susceptible to
race conditions.
v0.10.21-release
Ben Noordhuis 11 years ago
parent
commit
d97ea06d88
  1. 7
      doc/api/fs.markdown

7
doc/api/fs.markdown

@ -595,6 +595,13 @@ Then call the `callback` argument with either true or false. Example:
util.debug(exists ? "it's there" : "no passwd!"); util.debug(exists ? "it's there" : "no passwd!");
}); });
`fs.exists()` is an anachronism and exists only for historical reasons.
There should almost never be a reason to use it in your own code.
In particular, checking if a file exists before opening it is an anti-pattern
that leaves you vulnerable to race conditions: another process may remove the
file between the calls to `fs.exists()` and `fs.open()`. Just open the file
and handle the error when it's not there.
## fs.existsSync(path) ## fs.existsSync(path)

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