fs.readFileSync(filePath, function read(err, data) {} does not work even tho the targeted file is in the correct location - node.js

Question

Here's my relevant code:
1)
let pickenFile = randomItemFormatted.source_filenametxt;
let filePath = `textFiles/${pickenFile}`;
This happens after an axios.get() that returns the name of the file.
The problem does not come from the name of the file itself.
2)
fs.readFileSync(filePath, function read(err, data) {
if(err){
console.log(err);
runTheBot();
}else{
// I should be able to access the data here :(
console.log(data);
tokenizer = new natural.SentenceTokenizer();
let textToTokenize = tokenizer.tokenize(data.toString('utf8').replace(/\0/g, ''));
dataObj.randomItemFormatted = randomItemFormatted;
dataObj.stringsArray = textToTokenize;
return returnSpecificString(dataObj);
}
});
})}
When I pass the filePath to the fs.readFileSync(), the code does not pass the error block. I'm adding the full error response here:
(node:9500) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open 'textFiles/1884_Ford__Bradstreet.txt'
at Object.openSync (fs.js:447:3)
at Object.readFileSync (fs.js:349:35)
at /Users/cyrus/Documents/Code/01. Code/franklin-ford-bot/server_side/server.js:74:9
at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:85:5)
(node:9500) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Unhandled promise rejection. This error originated either by throwing inside of an async function without a catch block, or by rejecting a promise which was not handled with .catch(). (rejection id: 1)
(node:9500) [DEP0018] DeprecationWarning: Unhandled promise rejections are deprecated. In the future, promise rejections that are not handled will terminate the Node.js process with a non-zero exit code.
Here's also my project's architecture where the targeted .txt files are hosted.I start the server with the node server_side/server.js.
It was working previously and nothing changed in the code since when it was working.

Answer 1

fs.readFileSync() does not take a callback. Your code is trying to use the fs.readFile() interface with fs.readFileSync(). See the doc.
Errors from fs.readFileSync() will be thrown as exceptions so you need try/catch around it to catch errors.
The general structure for using fs.readFileSync() in the code you show would look like this:
try {
let data = fs.readFileSync(filePath);
// I should be able to access the data here :(
console.log(data);
tokenizer = new natural.SentenceTokenizer();
let textToTokenize = tokenizer.tokenize(data.toString('utf8').replace(/\0/g, ''));
dataObj.randomItemFormatted = randomItemFormatted;
dataObj.stringsArray = textToTokenize;
return returnSpecificString(dataObj);
} catch(e) {
console.log(e);
runTheBot();
return something;
}
Now, as for the ENOENT error, that is a separate problem to fix. What I would suggest is that you do this:
const path = require('path');
let filePath = `textFiles/${pickenFile}`
console.log(path.resolve(filePath));
This will show you the full path for the file you were attempting to use. It seems likely that either the full path is not exactly what you expected it to be or there is a file permission issue preventing you from accessing it.
If the textFiles subdirectory you are trying to access is below the module directory where this code is running from, then you may want to use __dirname to reference it like this:
const path = require('path');
let filePath = path.join(__dirname, "textFiles", pickenFile);