file_metadata.md

📂 File metadata

fs.stat()

The blksize and blocks values of fs.stat() are undefined on Windows.

The timestamps have inconsistent behavior across OS:

• birthtime and birthtimeMs can be 1970-01-01 or the same as ctime on some platforms
• atime and atimeMs can be disabled at the partition-level, especially on Unix but on Windows as well
• Windows handles ctime and ctimeMs differently than Unix
• mtime and mtimeMs are also not completely reliable

fs.open()

The O_NOATIME flag of fs.open() only works on Linux. Access times can also be disabled on Windows but through the registry.

The UV_FS_O_FILEMAP flag only works on Windows.

fs.watch()

fs.watch() is not very cross-platform. For example the option recursive does not work on Linux in Node.js <19.1.0. chokidar can be used instead.

The --watch-path CLI flag does not work on Linux either.

---

Next (💻 Terminal)
Previous (📂 Symlinks)
Top