Golang File and Directory IO operations with examples

In this tutorial, you will learn file and directory operations with examples.

Golang File IO package

In Any programming language, File IO operations are basic functionality. These operations are low-level calls made to underline operating Systems to operate physical files.

Go Language also provides many operations as part of standard packages. All these operations accept input, process it, and output to or from physical files.

There are many standard inbuilt packages that we are going to use in this post.

bufio package It contains functions
IOUtil package: has functions for Input and Output operations
os package: provides platform-independent functionalities for Operating System.

Here are important notes of a File in any programming language

A file is a collection of data stored under a computer machine.
Each file contains the name and path of the file
Filename contains the actual name of the file suffixed with the file extension. The extension is a type the file.
The path is a file location in the underline operating System file system. The path can be the absolute or relative path
The absolute path is a path from the root folder to the file location. This is specific to Operating System.
A relative path is a path that is relevant from the current directory.
In Operating System, Filename is unique in Directory.

Golang File Examples

Following are the basic examples that you need to know when you are dealing with go language files.

How to create an Empty File in Golang

It is a simple and easy example of creating an empty file.

In the below example, Standard os package provides create a function.

Syntax

Create(path) (\*File, error)

It accepts path. The path can be a absolute path or relative path. This creates a physical named file if already exits the same name, truncate it

This file returns two parameters, First, one is returned file reference to this file for IO operations. The second is an error if any exists on creating a file.

The file created with default permission mask 0666

package main
import (
 "log"
 "os"
)
func main() {
 emptyFile, error := os.Create("EmptyFile.txt")
 if error != nil {
  log.Fatal(error)
 }
 log.Println(emptyFile)
 emptyFile.Close()
}

log is a standard inbuilt in basic logging package. And function Fatal is equal to Println+ os. exit.

How to Copy files in Go Language?

Copy of files will transfer the file and its content from source to destination.

If you want to implement copy functionality, the following things need to be done.

Open a source file for reading using os.open() function
Read the content of a file using in-memory or buffer, In
Create a new file in the target directory with the same name using os.OpenFile with O_RDWR|os.O_CREATE for Create, Read and Write permissions
Write the source file content to the target file using io.copy() method
Finally, close source and target files using defer reader/writer.close()

Following is an example of copying a file.

import (
 "io"
 "log"
 "os"
)

func main() {
 source, sourceError := os.Open("source.txt")
 if sourceError != nil {
  log.Fatal(sourceError)
 }
 defer source.Close()

 target, targetError := os.OpenFile("target.txt", os.O_RDWR|os.O_CREATE, 0666)
 if targetError != nil {
  log.Fatal(targetError)
 }
 defer target.Close()
 _, copyError := io.Copy(target, source)
 if copyError != nil {
  log.Fatal(copyError)
 }
}

And the result is source.txt file is copied to target.txt

How to print Name, size, permissions, information of a File, and Directory?

Package Os contains Stat() function returns FileInfo object. FileInfo contains metadata information of a file.

It contains the

name of the file
size of a file in bytes
File Permissions
Last Modified date and time
file type -directory|file.

System process information Sys() is an interface that gives underlying System process information.

package main
import (
 "log"
 "os"
)

func main() {
 var file os.FileInfo
 file, error := os.Stat("testfile.txt")
 if error != nil {
  log.Fatal(error)
 }
 log.Println("Name of the File:", file.Name())
 log.Println("Size of File:", file.Size())
 log.Println("Permissions File:", file.Mode())
 log.Println("Last Modified of File:", file.ModTime())
 log.Println("Directory check: ", file.IsDir())
 log.Printf("System Process info: %+v\n\n", file.Sys())
}

An output of the above code is

2018/11/16 12:30:33 Name of the File: testfile.txt
2018/11/16 12:30:33 Size of File: 17
2018/11/16 12:30:33 Permissions File: -rw-rw-rw-
2018/11/16 12:30:33 Last Modified of File: 2018-11-16 12:11:10.3375944 +0530 IST
2018/11/16 12:30:33 Directory check:  false
2018/11/16 12:30:33 System Process info: &{FileAttributes:32 CreationTime:{LowDateTime:200182414 HighDateTime:30702958} LastAccessTime:{LowDateTime:200182414 HighDateTime:30702958} LastWriteTime:{LowD
High:0 FileSizeLow:17}

How to Rename or move a file name to a new name

This is useful when you want to rename a file or move a file from one location to another location. Without rename functionality, We need to delete the file and create a file with a new name.

The syntax is

os.Rename(oldpath,newpath)

Rename function accepts an old path and a new path.

It returns an error if any error exists.

import (
 "log"
 "os"
)

func main() {
 Filename := "testfile.txt"
 NewFileName := "testing.txt"
 error := os.Rename(Filename, NewFileName)
 if error != nil {
  log.Fatal(error)
 }
}

The output of the above program is nothing, But the testfile.txt is renamed to testing.txt.

In the above program, Filename and NewFileName are a path including file names. If it is in a different directory, the Output of rename command outputs to a new location with the renamed file.

How to Delete a file in Golang?

It is very simple to delete a file from a file system.

Inbuilt OS package provides Remove function.

Syntax is fs.Remove(path)

path is the name of the file or directory. Directory always starts with /.

import (
 "log"
 "os"
)

func main() {
 err := os.Remove("testing.txt")
 if err != nil {
  log.Fatal(err)
 }
}

The output, testing.txt file removed from the current directory. if any error occurs, It returns Error To delete files from a directory, If not error, Iterate all the files in the directory and apply os.Remove() function.

How to truncate or Reduce file size in Golang?

Function truncates reduce the file size by specified bytes.

The syntax is

os.Truncate(path, bytes)

The path is the name of the file including the absolute or relative path.

A second parameter is count of bytes of file size to reduce. If the name of the file in the path does not exist, It creates an empty file with this.

In the below code, If filename.txt is 1024 bytes in size, It truncates the file size to 200. If the size of filename.txt content is less than 200, It keeps its original size. If the second parameter is zero, It removes content from the file and makes an empty file.

package main
import (
 "log"
 "os"
)

func main() {
 err := os.Truncate("filename.txt", 200)

 if err != nil {
  log.Fatal(err)
 }
}

How to check if a File exists in Golang>

When we are doing any operations on files, the First requirement is to check if the file exists or not.

Standard os package provides Stat()function to get File meta information, If a file does not exist, Returns an error.

The error can be of different errors, We need to check whether these errors are related to file or directories that exist.

IsNotExist() function returns true. If the error is related to not exists.

import (
 "log"
 "os"
)

func main() {
 _, err := os.Stat("testfile.txt")
 if err == nil {
  log.Fatal(err)
 }
 if os.IsNotExist(err) {
  log.Fatal("Not Exists")
 }
}

How to Open and close files in Golang?

For reading /writing a file, First, We need to open the file. Standard package os provides functions to open a file for reading or writing content.

There are two ways we can do it.

Synta is

os.Open(filename String) (*File, error)

Parameters accepted

the name of the file with type string, which opens a file for reading with default file descriptor O_RDONLY Returns multiple parameters
*File and error-
- return *File and error null - if the file is successfully opened,
- if error, returns *PathError

Here is the example code for opening

file, err := os.Open("filename.txt")
 if err != nil {
  log.Fatal(err)
 }

if OpenFile throws an error at runtime, The error is open First.go: no such file or directory.

func OpenFile(filename string, flag int, perm FileMode) (*File, error)

The parameters are the filename is the name of the file The flag is of type int which contains the following constant values. It tells the purpose of the file to do operations.

os.O_RDONLY - For Reading only
os.O_WRONLY - Write-only
os.O_RDWR - both Read and write
os.O_APPEND Concatenate at end of file
os.O_CREATE - Create a file if not exist
os.O_TRUNC -Truncate file to reduce the size

We can supply a single parameter os.O_RDONLY or multiple parameters separated by | ie os.O_CREATE |os.O_RDWRthe last parameter is permissions which is of type FileMode.

Here is the example code for an opening file with various options. The program is to open the file filename.txt for appending the content to the end of the file with permissions - 0777

file, err := os.OpenFile("filename.txt",os.O_APPEND, 0777)
 if err != nil {
  log.Fatal(err)
 }

File closing when you are dealing with a file, You are doing input and output operations on hardware disk. It is an expensive operation in terms of performance. Hence, It is always advisable to close the file once done.

we can use simple close or can be combined with defer keyword to close file before returning data in a function

file.close() // simple closing
or
defer file.close() // this will be closed before returning data from a function

How to Append content to end of a File in golang

First Open the file with OpenFile functions with various file configuration options. Here used OpenFile function with O\_APPEND to open a file for appending String content. After the file is opened, Append data to a file using WriteString of a file.

It creates a file, if not exist and append the string. Finally, Close the file once done.

import (
 "log"
 "os"
)

func main() {
 file, error := os.OpenFile("employee.log", os.O_APPEND|os.O_CREATE|os.O_WRONLY, 0777)
 if error != nil {
  log.Fatal(error)
 }
 _, error1 := file.WriteString("1 abc 2000\n")
 if error1 != nil {
  log.Fatal(error1)
 }
 if error := file.Close(); error != nil {
  log.Fatal(error)
 }

}

The output of the above program an employee.log file does not exist before, a new file is created with below content

1 abc 2000

How to Write to a file in Golang?

It is a basic operation to write content into a file. ioutil package provides the WriteFile function which accepts filename, string content in bytes, permissions.

import (
 "io/ioutil"
 "log"
)

func main() {
 strBytes := []byte("Hi,\nWelcome to Go Tutorials\n")
 err := ioutil.WriteFile("samplefile.txt", strBytes, 0666)
 if err != nil {
  log.Fatal(err)
 }

}

The output is the samplefile.txt file is created, and the content is as follows.

Hi,
Welcome to Go Tutorials

How to Read a File line by line in Go Language

Normally, reading files transfers content to in-memory.

bufio package scanner functions provide for the reading line at a time.

Here is samplefile.txt file content

Hi,
Welcome to Go Tutorials

Here is a sequence of steps

Open a file using os.open() function
Create scanner on file reader using bufio.NewScanner() function
read line by line using a scanner.Scan(). scan function read a line at a time

import (
 "bufio"
 "fmt"
 "log"
 "os"
)

func main() {
 fileReader, error := os.Open("samplefile.txt")
 if error != nil {
  log.Fatal(error)
 }
 defer fileReader.Close()

 scanner := bufio.NewScanner(fileReader)
 for scanner.Scan() {
  fmt.Println(scanner.Text())
 }
 error1 := scanner.Err()
 if error1 != nil {
  log.Fatal(error1)
 }
}

Outputs file content line by line into the console.

Golang Directory examples

A directory alias is a folder that contains various types of files and nested directories.

It is helpful to organize the files and directory in the Operating System.

Following are various directory input-output operations.

How to Create a directory if not exist?

Use the standard package os to create a directory or folder.

First os.Stat() method checks meta-information of a file or directory,

if diretory already exists, this returns an error as nil value,then, do nothing. Once the check is completed, we have to call os.MkdirAll(path, permission) to create a directory with given permissions.

MkdirAll function is like mkdir command in Unix.

func main() {
 _, error := os.Stat("directory")
 if error == nil {
  log.Fatal(error)
 }
 if os.IsNotExist(error) {
  errorDir := os.MkdirAll("directory", 0755)
  if errorDir != nil {
   log.Fatal(error)
  }

 }
}

Outputs is the directory created in the current folder. The creation of a simple directory works as expected, But when there are nested directories, like dir1\dir2 path works in windows, but not on other platforms or Operating Systems.

The reason is path contains \ which will not work in UNIX Operating System. The above code is not feasible for platform-dependent and nested directory creation.

How to create a Nested directory in Golang?

If we want to create a nested directory such as dir1/dir2 in a current directory, we have to use os.MkdirAll with path and permissions.

Path object needs to be created using the path/filepath package. Join function in the file path, join all the parts into a single path.

It also picks the right separator based on the platform.

import (
 "log"
 "os"
 "path/filepath"
)

func main() {
 var nestedDir = "kiran/kiran2"
 path := filepath.Join(".", nestedDir)
 error := os.MkdirAll(path, 0777)
 if error != nil {
  log.Fatal(error)
 }

}

The output is Create a directory dir2 under dir1.

How to display List files from a directory?

It is a common requirement to list out files and directories of a current directory.

package ioutil ReadDir function returns a list of files in sorted order

import (
 "fmt"
 "io/ioutil"
 "log"
)

func main() {
 files, error := ioutil.ReadDir(".")
 if error != nil {
  log.Fatal(error)
 }
 for _, file := range files {
  fmt.Println(file.Name())
 }

}

Output :

EmptyFile.go
EmptyFile.txt
FileInfo.properties

How to print the current working directory to console?

Package os provides GetWd() function- returns the working directory starting from root directory to the current directory.

import (
 "fmt"
 "log"
 "os"
)

func main() {
 currentWorkingDirectory, error := os.Getwd()
 if error != nil {
  log.Fatal(error)
 }
 fmt.Println(currentWorkingDirectory)
}

Output returns current working directory absolute path

How to iterate or walk files and directories in Golang?

The directory contains files and directory, Directory is organized as a subdirectory tree.

Sometimes, It is required to visit each file and subdirectories of the directory.

filepath.Walk function is being used here.

It accepts directory and custom visit function parameters.

In the below program,

Create an anonymous function that is passed.
Walk function which iterates each file and directory in the directory tree.

import (
 "fmt"
 "log"
 "os"
 "path/filepath"
)

func main() {
 directory := "."
 customVisit := func(path string, fileInfo os.FileInfo, err1 error) error {
  if err1 != nil {
   return err1
  }
  fmt.Println(path, fileInfo.Size())
  return nil
 }
 error := filepath.Walk(directory, customVisit)
 if error != nil {
  log.Println(error)
 }

}

Output is listing out all files and subdirectories recursively to console.

Conclusion

You learned File and Directory examples in the Go language.

Golang File and Directory IO operations with examples

#Golang File IO package

#Golang File Examples

#How to create an Empty File in Golang

#How to Copy files in Go Language?

#How to print Name, size, permissions, information of a File, and Directory?

#How to Rename or move a file name to a new name

#How to Delete a file in Golang?

#How to truncate or Reduce file size in Golang?

#How to check if a File exists in Golang>

#How to Open and close files in Golang?

#How to Append content to end of a File in golang

#How to Write to a file in Golang?

#How to Read a File line by line in Go Language

#Golang Directory examples

#How to Create a directory if not exist?

#How to create a Nested directory in Golang?

#How to display List files from a directory?

#How to print the current working directory to console?

#How to iterate or walk files and directories in Golang?

#Conclusion