Make sure you are on the 5-requesting-permissions branch to follow along with this exercise.

Deno has a permissions API that will allow you to request certain access from your code as a library author.

In the "app.ts" file, define a const object which specifies the name of the "read" permission.

const desc = { name: "read" } as const;

Pass the descriptor object to the request method on Deno.permissions. Because the permissions API is still unstable, it does not show up in intellisense under the "Deno" object.

const desc = { name: "read" } as const;
const status = await Deno.permissions.request(desc);

The "status" variable will contain a "state" object after the user has either granted or denied permissions. If the permission is granted, the state will be "granted". If it is denied, then "denied".

Check the state object on the status constant to make sure permission has been granted. If so, list all the files in the current directory.

const desc = { name: "read", path: "." } as const;
const status = await Deno.permissions.request(desc);

console.log(status);

if (status.state === "granted") {
  const results = await Deno.readDir(".");
  for await (const result of results) {
    console.log(result);
  }
} else {
  console.log("This program requires 'read' permissions to execute");
}

Run the program from the terminal with deno run --unstable app.ts.

You should see a prompt in the terminal asking you if you want to grant or deny permission to "read".

Check file:///home/burkeholland/dev/deno-first-look-exercises/app.ts
️⚠️  Deno requests read access. Grant? [g/d (g = grant, d = deny)]

Enter "g" to grant or "d" to deny and view the output.

Note that if you run this program with the --allow-read flag, the permissions request will be ignored and the "status.state" value will be "granted".