How do I delete a directory without emptying it first?

Adam has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question: ⭐ (directories)

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: How do I delete a directory without emptying it first?⭐ by DracoWulf (Initiate) on Sep 12, 2000 at 01:19 UTC
The simplest cross-platform method I have found was with the File::Path function `rmtree`. You pass it an array of directories you want to delete. It will delete the entire tree. `use File::Path; rmtree([ '/tmp/foo', '/tmp/bar' ]);` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: How do I delete a directory without emptying it first? by gav^ (Curate) on Jan 17, 2002 at 07:04 UTC
I'm not sure if this is a better method than using File::Path, but it is a hell of a lot better than rolling your own with File::Find :) `use File::Remove qw(remove); remove \1, "dir";` [download] gav^	[reply] [d/l]
Re: How do I delete a directory without emptying it first? by swngnmonk (Pilgrim) on Mar 09, 2004 at 17:50 UTC
What about rmtree? `use File::Path qw(rmtree); rmtree($dir);` [download] File::Path and File::Path::Functions are great to use when you're looking for perl solutions to file management, and want to avoid system-specific issues. Originally posted as a Categorized Answer.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: How do I delete a directory without emptying it first? by ZZamboni (Curate) on Aug 26, 2000 at 02:36 UTC
The question is: what would happen to the files in that directory after you delete it? Moved? Deleted? That's why most operating systems don't allow you to remove a directory that has any files in it. The operating system cannot guess what you want done with the files. You have to do something with them first.	[reply]
Re: How do I delete a directory without emptying it first? by trala (Initiate) on Jan 17, 2002 at 05:07 UTC
Okay, just came up with this for a script I am working on. If this is really stupid, please someone let me know! `use File::Find; finddepth (\&remove_dir, "$directory"); rmdir ( "$directory" ) or die ("Could not remove $directory"); sub remove_dir { # for a directory, this will be 0 if ( ! (stat("$File::Find::name"))[7] ) { rmdir("$File::Find::name"); } else { unlink("$File::Find::name"); } }` [download] In theory, finddepth will find the deepest items first (files inside the directories). Once the files are unlinked, the directories will be empty and can be removed.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Answer: How do I delete a directory without emptying it first? by gav^ (Curate) on Jan 17, 2002 at 07:11 UTC
To make your example a bit shorter you could go for: `use File::Find; finddepth( sub { (-d) ? rmdir : unlink }, $directory);` [download] But I would recommend using File::Remove as per my example. gav^	[reply] [d/l]
Re: How do I delete a directory without emptying it first? by cLive ;-) (Prior) on Apr 02, 2001 at 08:59 UTC
*nix/linux? `my $dir = '/directory/path'; system('rm','-r',$dir);` [download] And if you're doing this from input data... well if you are, you're probably mad :) cLive ;-)	[reply] [d/l]
Re: How do I delete a directory without emptying it first? by Anonymous Monk on Mar 09, 2004 at 16:04 UTC
rm -ri directory before use this command, please man rm first. Originally posted as a Categorized Answer.	[reply]
Re: How do I delete a directory without emptying it first? by merlyn (Sage) on Aug 26, 2000 at 01:00 UTC
I suppose you could go in and edit the i-node, and then let the next `fsck` run clean up your mess. But the real question is, "why". Why do you want to do that?	[reply]


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