Delete directory and all symlinks recursively-CodePudding

To delete a directory with all contained files I chose the usage of shutil as common.

import shutil
from os.path import exists
if exists(path_dir):
    shutil.rmtree(path_dir)

Unfortunatelly my solution does not work throwing the following error.

FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '._image1.jpg'

A quick search showed that I'm not alone having this problem. Comparable, still unsolved question can be found here. In my understanding rmtree is equivalent to rm -Rf $DIR which now seems not to be the case.

Any ideas appreciated.

p.s. for reconstruction purposes. Please create a symbolic link for example using ln -s /path/to/original /path/to/link

CodePudding user response：

From How to remove a directory including all its files in python?

# function that deletes all files and then folder

import glob, os

def del_folder(dir_name):
    
    dir_path = os.getcwd()    "\{}".format(dir_name)
    try:
        os.rmdir(dir_path)  # remove the folder
    except:
        print("OSError")   # couldn't remove the folder because we have files inside it
    finally:
        # now iterate through files in that folder and delete them one by one and delete the folder at the end
        try:
            for filepath in os.listdir(dir_path):
                os.remove(dir_path    "\{}".format(filepath))
            os.rmdir(dir_path)
            print("folder is deleted")
        except:
            print("folder is not there")

You can also just be able to use the ignore_errors flag with shutil.rmtree().

shutil.rmtree('/folder_name', ignore_errors=True) That should remove a directory with file contents.

CodePudding user response：

That is strange, I have no issues with shutil.rmtree() with or without symlink under the folder to be deleted, both in windows 10 and Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS.

Anyhow try the following code. I tried it in windows 10 and Ubuntu.

from pathlib import Path
import shutil


def delete_dir(folder):
    p = Path(folder)

    if not p.exists():
        print(f'The path {p} does not exists!')
        return

    # Attempt to delete the whole folder at once.
    try:
        shutil.rmtree(p)
    except Exception as exception:
        print(f'exception name: {exception.__class__.__name__}')
        print(f'exception msg: {exception}')
        # continue parsing the folder
    else:  # else if no issues on rmtree()
        if not p.exists():  # verify
            print(f'folder {p} was successfully deteted by shutil.rmtree!')
            return

    print(f'Parse the folder {folder} ...')
    for f in p.glob('**/*'):
        if f.is_file():
            print(f'file: {f.name} will be deleted')
            f.unlink()  # delete file under folder
        elif f.is_dir():
            print(f'folder: {f.name} will be deleted')
            try:
                f.rmdir()  # delete sub-folder
            except NotADirectoryError:
                f.unlink()  # delete sub-folder symlink, linux
            except Exception as exception:
                print(f'exception name: {exception.__class__.__name__}')
                print(f'exception msg: {exception}')

    try:
        p.rmdir()  # time to delete an empty folder
    except NotADirectoryError:
        print(f'Deleting folder symlink {p}!')
        p.unlink()  # delete folder even if it is a symlink, linux
    except Exception as exception:
        print(f'exception name: {exception.__class__.__name__}')
        print(f'exception msg: {exception}')

    if not p.exists():  # verify
        print(f'folder {p} was successfully deteted!')


# Start
folder_to_be_deleted = 'F:/sample/a/b'  # delete folder b
delete_dir(folder_to_be_deleted)