Is there any way to remove a directory and it’s contents in the PathLib module? With path.unlink() it only removes a file, with path.rmdir() the directory has to be empty. Is there no way to do it in one function call?
7 Answers
As you already know, the only two Path methods for removing files/directories are .unlink() and .rmdir() and neither does what you want.
Pathlib is a module that provides object oriented paths across different OS's, it isn't meant to have lots of diverse methods.
The aim of this library is to provide a simple hierarchy of classes to handle filesystem paths and the common operations users do over them.
The "uncommon" file system alterations, such as recursively removing a directory, is stored in different modules. If you want to recursively remove a directory, you should use the shutil module. (It works with Path instances too!)
import shutil
import pathlib
import os # for checking results
print(os.listdir())
# ["a_directory", "foo.py", ...]
path = pathlib.Path("a_directory")
shutil.rmtree(path)
print(os.listdir())
# ["foo.py", ...]
Here's a pure pathlib implementation:
from pathlib import Path
def rm_tree(pth):
pth = Path(pth)
for child in pth.glob('*'):
if child.is_file():
child.unlink()
else:
rm_tree(child)
pth.rmdir()
Otherwise, you can try this one if you want only pathlib:
from pathlib import Path
def rm_tree(pth: Path):
for child in pth.iterdir():
if child.is_file():
child.unlink()
else:
rm_tree(child)
pth.rmdir()
rm_tree(your_path)
If you don't mind using a third-party library give path a try.
Its API is similar to pathlib.Path, but provides some additional methods, including Path.rmtree() to recursively delete a directory tree.
def rm_rf(basedir):
if isinstance(basedir,str): basedir = pathlib.Path(basedir)
if not basedir.is_dir(): return
for p in reversed(list(basedir.rglob("*"))):
if p.is_file(): p.unlink()
elif p.is_dir(): p.rmdir()
basedir.rmdir()
You might use pathlib3x - it offers a backport of the latest (at the date of writing this answer Python 3.10.a0) Python pathlib for Python 3.6 or newer, and a few additional functions like rmtree
>>> python -m pip install pathlib3x
>>> import pathlib3x as pathlib
>>> my_path = pathlib.Path('c:/tmp/some_directory')
>>> my_path.rmtree(ignore_errors=True)
you can find it on github or PyPi
Disclaimer: I'm the author of the pathlib3x library.
Simple and effective:
def rmtree(f: Path):
if f.is_file():
f.unlink()
else:
for child in f.iterdir():
rmtree(child)
f.rmdir()
