how to delete file after download in node.js

delete_after_download.js

var fs          = require('fs'),
    express     = require('express'),
    app         = express();

function deleteFile (file) { 
    fs.unlink(file, function (err) {
        if (err) {
            console.error(err.toString());
        } else {
            console.warn(file + ' deleted');
        }
    });
}

app.get('/deleteAfterDownload', function (req, res) {
    var filename = "file.dat";
    var stream = fs.createReadStream(filename);
    stream.pipe(res).once("close", function () {
        stream.destroy(); // makesure stream closed, not close if download aborted.
        deleteFile(filename);
    });
});

app.listen(80);

@thekoushik - That worked for me too, thanks!

Hi, I used the above code to delete file, but file is not deleted and I'm not even getting error in fs.unlink, please help me

Here is the code:

var stream = fs.createReadStream(targetPath, { emitClose: true });
                    stream.on('end', function () {
                        console.log('data read successfully');
                        stream.close();
                    });
                    stream.on('error', function () {
                        console.log('error in reading the data');
                    });
                    stream.on('data', function () {
                        console.log("receiving the data");
                    })
                    stream.on("close", function () {
                        stream.destroy((err) => {
                            if (err) {
                                console.log("error in destroying the stream " + err);
                            }
                        }); 
                       fs.unlink(targetPath, function (err) {
                            if (err) {
                                console.log(`Error in deleting the file: ${err}.`);
                            } else {
                                console.log(`Successfully deleted the file.`);
                            }
                        });
                    });

@sudheer5

In your code snippet, it just created a stream, it need to do something to close
the stream, such as:

stream.pipe(process.stdout);

The Stream.pipe api will close the input stream after finish reading, or you can
close the input stream manually.

You can try to add logging statements in "close" event handler, to see if it
really closed.