Question

I’m using Javascript to write an application that will be used with Phonegap to make an Android application. I’m using the Phonegap File API to read directories and files. The relevant code is shown below:

document.addEventListener("deviceready", onDeviceReady, false);

// PhoneGap is ready
//
function onDeviceReady() {
    window.requestFileSystem(LocalFileSystem.PERSISTENT, 0, onFileSystemSuccess, fail);
}

function onFileSystemSuccess(fileSystem) {
    fileSystem.root.getDirectory("/sdcard", {create: false, exclusive: false}, getDirSuccess, fail);
}

function getDirSuccess(dirEntry) {
    // Get a directory reader
    var directoryReader = dirEntry.createReader();

    // Get a list of all the entries in the directory
    directoryReader.readEntries(readerSuccess,fail);
}

var numDirs = 0;
var numFiles = 0;

function readerSuccess(entries) {
    var i;
    for (i=0; i<entries.length; i++) 
    {
        if(entries[i].isFile === true)
        {
        numFiles++;
        entries[i].file(fileSuccess,fail);
        }
        else if (entries[i].isDirectory === true)
        {
        numDirs++;
        getDirSuccess(entries[i]);
        }
    }
}

So as of now, the program works fine. The reader will read the contents of the /sdcard directory..if it encounters a file, it will call fileSuccess (which I’ve excluded in the code for brevity), and if it encounters another directory, it will call getDirSuccess again. My question is this: How can I know when the entire /sdcard directory is read? I can’t think of a good way of accomplishing this without going through the /sdcard directory more than one time. Any ideas are appreciated, and thank you in advance!

Answer 1

+1 on a good question since I have to do this anyway myself. I would use the old setTimeout trick. Once the cancel doesn’t occur anymore, you know you are done and can fire your event, but just ensure its only fired once.

Here’s what I mean and I’ve named the variables long simply to be more readable (not my style)…

// create timeout var outside your "readerSuccess" function scope
var readerTimeout = null, millisecondsBetweenReadSuccess = 100;

function readerSuccess(entries) {
    var i = 0, len = entries.length;
    for (; i < len; i++) {
        if (entries[i].isFile) {
            numFiles++;
            entries[i].file(fileSuccess,fail);
        } else if (entries[i].isDirectory) {
            numDirs++;
            getDirSuccess(entries[i]);
        }
        if (readerTimeout) {
            window.clearTimeout(readerTimeout);
        }
    }
    if (readerTimeout) {
        window.clearTimeout(readerTimeout);
    }
    readerTimeout = window.setTimeout(weAreDone, millisecondsBetweenReadSuccess);
}

// additional event to call when totally done
function weAreDone() {
   // do something
}

So the logic in this is you keep cancelling the “weAreDone” function from being called as you are reading through stuff. Not sure if this is the best way or more efficient but it would not result in more than one loop given the appropriate “millisecondsBetweenReadSuccess”.