Dart:
Checking if a directory exists

How to:

Dart uses the dart:io library to work with files and directories. Here is a simple way to check if a directory exists:

import 'dart:io';

void main() {
  var directory = Directory('path/to/your/directory');

  if (directory.existsSync()) {
    print('Directory exists');
  } else {
    print('Directory does not exist');
  }
}

Sample output if the directory does exist:

Directory exists

Or, if it does not:

Directory does not exist

To handle more complex scenarios, such as asynchronous checking or creating a directory if it doesn’t exist, you could use the following approach:

import 'dart:io';

void main() async {
  var directory = Directory('path/to/your/directory');

  // Asynchronously check if the directory exists
  var exists = await directory.exists();
  if (exists) {
    print('Directory exists');
  } else {
    print('Directory does not exist, creating...');
    await directory.create(); // This creates the directory
    print('Directory created');
  }
}

Sample output if the directory did not exist and was created:

Directory does not exist, creating...
Directory created

Dart’s built-in capabilities are usually sufficient for handling files and directories, so third-party libraries are typically not necessary for this task. However, for more complex file system operations, packages like path (for manipulating paths in a platform-agnostic way) can complement the dart:io library but do not directly offer more advanced directory existence checks than what is shown.