Removing directory using perl script

[lilly07]

Hi I tried a simple script to remove the directory as below:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use File::Find;
#finddepth(sub{rmdir},'.')
system('rm -rf test3');

1. finddepth(sub{r mdir},'.') removed all the empty directories.
2. But I wanted to remove all the directories which are not empty. Hence I tried

system('rm -rf test3');

to remove all directories inside test3 directory and it works.

Please let me know whether there are any other elegant way of removing directories? Removing the directories takes more time (approximately 20 minutes) and hence is it advisable to fork the process and do?Thanks.

[numberwhun]

Well, instead of invoking the system 'rm' command, you could use the rmdir function provided by Perl.

Regards,

Jeff

[KevinADC]

I think File::Path will delete empty and non-empty folders. How elegant it is though, I have no idea. You could traverse the directories and sub directories and delete all the files then delete the folders.

[sweetypie]

Script to recursively delete

#!/usr/bin/perl
deldir("test"); # or deldir($ARGV[0]) to make it commandline
 
sub deldir {
  my $dirtodel = pop;
  my $sep = '\\'; #change this line to "/" on linux.
  opendir(DIR, $dirtodel);
  my @files = readdir(DIR);
  closedir(DIR);
 
  @files = grep { !/^\.{1,2}/ } @files;
  @files = map { $_ = "$dirtodel$sep$_"} @files;
  @files = map { (-d $_)?deldir($_):unlink($_) } @files;
 
  rmdir($dirtodel);
}

From URL REMOVED PER SITE POLICY

[RonB]

That's a poor example, which you should not use.

Here's a cleaner, shorter, and more efficient method.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use File::Path qw(remove_tree);

remove_tree('test');

Or, if you're on a *nix system, you could do this:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

system('rm -rf test');

[numberwhun]

Sweetypie,

First, I have removed your URL that you put into your post. We do not allow personally promotional URLs in the forums, thus, why I have removed it.

Second, please keep in mind the age of the posts that you are replying to. This one was over a year old.


Regards,

Jeff

[sweetypie]

Using system command is the worst way of doing it.
Although the use File::Path qw(remove_tree) is the best.

@jeff : oops ...