Jaxer allows access to individual folders on the file system through the Jaxer.Dir class.

Instantiating a Folder object

We can instantiate a folder object by simply newing up Jaxer.File(pathToFile). Note that creating a folder object does not automatically create the equivalent folder on the file system.

The Jaxer.Dir object expects to be created with 'resolved' paths which means they require a full path to the referenced file system object. The following code will throw an error 'NS_ERROR_FILE_UNRECOGNIZED_PATH'. var myFolder = Jaxer.Dir('newfolder'); To deal with this issue, use the provided Jaxer.Dir.resolve(path) method to create the required path. Jaxer version prior to 0.9.8 use Jaxer.Dir.resolvePath() var folderPath = Jaxer.Dir.resolve('newfolder'); var myFolder = new Jaxer.Dir(folderPath);

This will give us a javascript object called myFolder, which provides many useful methods for accessing the folder on the file system.

Getting information about the folder

Now that we have a folder object, we can retrieve a lot of useful information about the folder by simply using the provided accessor methods. The API docs contain a full description for the folder objects.

The most useful (or at least most commonly used) method for folder objects is exists(). This provides us with a boolean value predicated on the existence of the referenced folder on the file system.

// if the folder doesn't exist create an empty folder. // before 0.9.8 use : if (!myFolder.exists()) if (!myFolder.exists) { myFolder.create(); }

Now that we have an instantiated folder object called 'myFolder' that we know exists, we can interrogate it to get useful information about the folder and its properties:

var path = myFolder.path; // C:\aptana\JaxerDev\public\work\new var parentPath = myFolder.parentPath; // C:\aptana\JaxerDev\public\work var dateModified = myFolder.dateModified; // Wed Mar 05 2008 14:52:03 GMT-0800 (Pacific Standard Time) // for builds prior to Jaxer 0.9.8 use the form // var isDir = myFolder.isDir(); // var isFile = myFolder.isFile(); // ... // var isSpecial = myFolder.isSpecial(); // false var isDir = myFolder.isDir; // true var isFile = myFolder.isFile; // false var isExec = myFolder.isExec; // false var isSymlink = myFolder.isSymlink; // false var isWritable = myFolder.isWritable; // true var isReadable = myFolder.isReadable; // true var isHidden = myFolder.isHidden; // false var isSpecial = myFolder.isSpecial; // false

Managing folders on the filesystem

Some methods are available to directly manage the folders.

Creating a folder

To create a folder, invoke the create() method on a dir object.

var myFolder = new Jaxer.Dir(Jaxer.Dir.resolve('myFolder.txt')); if (!myFolder.exists) { myFolder.create(); }

Deleting a folder

To delete a folder, use the remove() method.

// if the folder exists delete it if (myFolder.exists) { myFolder.remove(); }

Once you delete the folder, some methods previously available on the dir object will throw exceptions if accessed.