Java.nio: most concise recursive directory delete

user_210368 0
Viewed 51541

I am currently trying to recursively delete a directory... Strangely enough the shortest piece of code I was able to find is the following construct, employing an ad-hoc inner class and in a visitor pattern...

Path rootPath = Paths.get("data/to-delete");

try {
  Files.walkFileTree(rootPath, new SimpleFileVisitor<Path>() {
    @Override
    public FileVisitResult visitFile(Path file, BasicFileAttributes attrs) throws IOException {
      System.out.println("delete file: " + file.toString());
      Files.delete(file);
      return FileVisitResult.CONTINUE;
    }

    @Override
    public FileVisitResult postVisitDirectory(Path dir, IOException exc) throws IOException {
      Files.delete(dir);
      System.out.println("delete dir: " + dir.toString());
      return FileVisitResult.CONTINUE;
    }
  });
} catch(IOException e){
  e.printStackTrace();
}

Source: here

This feels horribly clumsy and verbose, given that the new nio APIs remove so much clutter and boilerplate...

Is there any shorter way of achieving a forced, recursive directory delete?

I'm looking for pure native Java 1.8 methods, so please don't link to external libraries...

delete-file nio directory java
6 Answers

If you must use only Java 7 with NIO

Path path = Paths.get("./target/logs");
Files.walkFileTree(path, new SimpleFileVisitor<Path>() {
  @Override
  public FileVisitResult visitFile(Path file, BasicFileAttributes attrs) throws IOException {
    Files.delete(file);
    return FileVisitResult.CONTINUE;
  }

  @Override
  public FileVisitResult postVisitDirectory(Path dir, IOException exc)
      throws IOException {
    Files.delete(dir);
    return FileVisitResult.CONTINUE;
  }
});
user_42307770 
Files.walk(pathToBeDeleted).sorted(Comparator.reverseOrder()).forEach(Files::delete);

You'll need the "try with resources" pattern to close the stream if "timely disposal of file system resources is required".

Also, probably an unwelcome comment, but it would be much cleaner and more readable to use a library. With the code in a shared function, it won't take up much space. Every person who looks at your code must validate that this code does a proper delete, and its by no means obvious.

user_11220690

FileUtils.deleteDirectory from Apache Commons IO deletes a directory recursively.

Example:

Path pathToBeDeleted = TEMP_DIRECTORY.resolve(DIRECTORY_NAME);

boolean result = FileUtils.deleteDirectory(pathToBeDeleted.toFile());

For more information see Delete a Directory Recursively in Java.

user_3763660
Related