# Node File Paths

> Learn how to work with file paths in Node.js using the path module: extract dirname, basename, and extname, and combine paths with join and resolve.

Author: Flavio Copes | Published: 2018-08-22 | Canonical: https://flaviocopes.com/node-file-paths/

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- [Getting information out of a path](#getting-information-out-of-a-path)
- [Working with paths](#working-with-paths)

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Every file in the system has a path.

On Linux and macOS, a path might look like:

`/users/flavio/file.txt`

while Windows computers are different, and have a structure such as:

`C:\users\flavio\file.txt`

You need to pay attention when using paths in your applications, as this difference must be taken into account.

You include this module in your files using

```js
const path = require('path')
```

and you can start using its methods.

## Getting information out of a path

Given a path, you can extract information out of it using those methods:

- `dirname`: get the parent folder of a file
- `basename`: get the filename part
- `extname`: get the file extension

Example:

```js
const notes = '/users/flavio/notes.txt'

path.dirname(notes) // /users/flavio
path.basename(notes) // notes.txt
path.extname(notes) // .txt
```

You can get the file name without the extension by specifying a second argument to `basename`:

```js
path.basename(notes, path.extname(notes)) //notes
```

## Working with paths

You can join two or more parts of a path by using `path.join()`:

```js
const name = 'flavio'
path.join('/', 'users', name, 'notes.txt') //'/users/flavio/notes.txt'
```

You can get the absolute path calculation of a relative path using `path.resolve()`:

```js
path.resolve('flavio.txt') //'/Users/flavio/flavio.txt' if run from my home folder
```

In this case Node will append `/flavio.txt` to the current working directory. If you specify a second parameter folder, `resolve` will use the first as a base for the second:

```js
path.resolve('tmp', 'flavio.txt')//'/Users/flavio/tmp/flavio.txt' if run from my home folder
```

If the first parameter starts with a slash, that means it's an absolute path:

```js
path.resolve('/etc', 'flavio.txt')//'/etc/flavio.txt'
```

`path.normalize()` is another useful function, that will try and calculate the actual path, when it contains relative specifiers like `.` or `..`, or double slashes:

```js
path.normalize('/users/flavio/..//test.txt') ///users/test.txt
```

**Both resolve and normalize will not check if the path exists**. They just calculate a path based on the information they got.