How to copy a file to every directory with Grunt? - gruntjs

Question

So I'm building a WP plugin and it's customary to put empty index.html files into every folder to prevent directory listing where the host allows it. I'm building the deployment-ready package with grunt, but the only thing I'm missing are these files. I have many folders and would rather not create these files by hand. I'm happy to create one, and make Grunt copy that file to every path. But how?

Answer 1

No additional grunt plug-ins are necessary. Your requirement can be achieved using Grunt's built-in features.
Consider adding a custom Task to your Gruntfile.js as per the one named createEmptyHtmlFiles shown below.
Gruntfile.js
module.exports = function(grunt) {
grunt.initConfig({
// ...
});
/**
* Custom task to create empty `index.html` file in all folders.
*/
grunt.registerTask('createEmptyHtmlFiles', function() {
var fileName = 'index.html',
contents = '';
grunt.file.expand({ filter: 'isDirectory' }, 'dist/**/*')
.forEach(function(dirPath) {
var htmlFilePath = dirPath + '/' + fileName;
grunt.file.write(htmlFilePath, contents, { encoding: 'utf8'})
});
});
grunt.registerTask('default', ['createEmptyHtmlFiles']);
};
Explanation:
Typically your Gruntfile.js will include grunt.initConfig({ ... }); section that defines the configuration of various Tasks that you want to perform. This part should remain as per your current configuration.
A custom Task named createEmptyHtmlFiles is registered that does the following:
Assigns the desired filename, i.e. index.html, to the fileName variable and also assigns an empty string to the contents variable.
Next we utilize grunt.file.expand to which we pass a globbing pattern. In the example above the glob provided is 'dist/**/*'. The globbing pattern combined with the filter: 'isDirectory' option essentially obtains the pathnames to all folders inside the dist directory.
Important: This glob pattern you will need to change as per your directory structure.
Next we iterate each directory pathname using the Array's forEach method.
In each turn of the forEach loop we assign to the htmlFilePath variable a new pathname for where the resultant index.html file is to be created.
Each index.html file is created using grunt.file.write.
Demo:
Lets say the project directory is structured as follows:
.
├── Gruntfile.js
├── dist
│   ├── a
│   │   ├── b
│   │   │   └── 1.txt
│   │   └── c
│   │   └── 2.txt
│   ├── d
│   │   ├── 3.txt
│   │   └── e
│   │   └── 4.txt
│   └── f
│   └── g
│   └── 5.txt
├── node_modules
│ └── ...
└── package.json
Given the Gruntfile.js above after running $ grunt it will change to the following:
.
├── Gruntfile.js
├── dist
│   ├── a
│   │   ├── b
│   │   │   ├── 1.txt
│   │   │   └── index.html <-----
│   │   ├── c
│   │   │   ├── 2.txt
│   │   │   └── index.html <-----
│   │   └── index.html <-----
│   ├── d
│   │   ├── 3.txt
│   │   ├── e
│   │   │   ├── 4.txt
│   │   │   └── index.html <-----
│   │   └── index.html <-----
│   └── f
│   ├── g
│   │   ├── 5.txt
│   │   └── index.html <-----
│   └── index.html <-----
├── node_modules
│ └── ...
└── package.json
Note Every folder inside the dist directory now includes an empty index.html file.
You may need to exclude the index.html from being created in specific directories. In which case we can you can negate specific directories via the glob pattern(s) passed to the grunt.file.expand method.
For instance, lets say we configure it as follows in the createEmptyHtmlFiles task:
...
grunt.file.expand({ filter: 'isDirectory' }, ['dist/**/*', '!dist/a/{b,c}'])
...
Note: This time we pass an Array that contains two glob patterns. The first one is the same as per the previous example, however the second one begins with ! which will negate a match.
Running $ grunt using the the aforementioned glob patterns will result in the following directory structure:
.
├── Gruntfile.js
├── dist
│ ├── a
│ │ ├── b
│ │ │ └── 1.txt
│ │ ├── c
│ │ │ └── 2.txt
│ │ └── index.html <-----
│ ├── d
│ │ ├── 3.txt
│ │ ├── e
│ │ │ ├── 4.txt
│ │ │ └── index.html <-----
│ │ └── index.html <-----
│ └── f
│ ├── g
│ │ ├── 5.txt
│ │ └── index.html <-----
│ └── index.html <-----
├── node_modules
│ └── ...
└── package.json
Note Every folder inside the dist directory, excluding folders b and c, now include an empty index.html file.
btw. When you say "empty index.html files", I've taken that literally. However if you did need some html markup in each file you can assign that to the contents variable. For example:
contents = '<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head></head>\n<body></body>\n</html>';
But I said "copy a file ..."
In which case you can change the custom Task to the following:
/**
* Custom task to copy a source `index.html` file in all folders.
*/
grunt.registerTask('copyFileToFolders', function() {
var srcFilePath = './path/to/file/to/copy/index.html';
grunt.file.expand({ filter: 'isDirectory' }, 'dist/**/*')
.forEach(function(dirPath) {
grunt.file.copy(srcFilePath, dirPath + '/index.html')
});
});
Notes:
This utilizes grunt.file.copy to copy the source file to all folders.
The pathname assigned to the srcFilePath variable should be substituted with a real pathname to the actual master index.html file that you want to copy to all folders.
As per the first example, the glob pattern passed to grunt.file.expand must be change as necessary.