Node js App to display folder files - node.js

Question

I am trying to display file list from folders .
my folder structure is like below
Invoices
1. error
2. processed
3. unprocessed
I have created node api for same which i am calling on my html page. code for the same is as below
const fs = require('fs');
var express = require('express');
var cors = require('cors');
var app = express();
app.use(cors());
app.use(express.static(__dirname));
var flength;
var filename;
var currentFile;
var items = [];
var dir1 = 'Invoices';
var filepath = [];
var readFolder = function(dir1) {
var countt = function(filename) {
var currentFile = dir1 + '/' + filename;
fs.readdir(currentFile, (err, files) => {
flength = files.length;
var fileArrayList = [];
for (var f in files) {
var record = {
filename: files[f],
filepath: dir1 + '/' + filename + '/' + files[f]
}
fileArrayList.push(record);
}
items.push({
'file': filename,
'count': flength,
'files': fileArrayList
});
});
}
var ReadFirst = function(dir1) {
fs.readdir(dir1, (err, files) => {
for (var i in files) {
var filename = files[i];
var currentFile = dir1 + '/' + filename;
var stats = fs.statSync(currentFile);
if (stats.isDirectory()) {
countt(filename);
}
}
});
}
ReadFirst(dir1);
}
setTimeout(function(str1, str2) {
readFolder(dir1);
}, 1000);
app.get('/FileCount', function(req, res) {
res.send(items);
});
app.listen(4000);
console.log('Listening on port 4000');
When i add or delete files from any folder then its not reflecting on my html page.need help for this.
thank you.

Answer 1

This is happening because of the way you've implemented this.
Your client (the HTML page) requests the server (NodeJS) API for
some data. In this case, it is the list of files in a folder. The server sends the response based on the state of files at the time (plus ∆).
You display those results in the HTML page. Now, there is no live link between your HTML page and your backend server. This means any changes that happen after this point won't be automatically reflected in the page.
You can do two things here:
Call your API repeatedly after an interval of few seconds. (If you're using AngularJS, look into setTimeout function.
Use sockets for having a real-time link. One good documentation here:
https://loopback.io/doc/en/lb2/Realtime-socket-io.html
This is more of a design issue and your NodeJS API looks fine.