Examples of using glob and rmtree in Python to delete subdirectories and all files from a directory

Batch and shell

Directories and files:

C:TESTFOLDERTEST

 ├ ─ Test2

 └ ─ Test3

        test.txt

Delete all files under the directory:

rmdir /S /Q c:TestFoldertest

Delete all files in the directory, but the directory structure cannot be deleted:

del /F /S /Q c:TestFoldertest*

Linux's similar command is:

rm /rf /home/aaa/test

Second, in python

: note that an exception will be thrown if an error occurs.

1) delete files and do not support the wildcard: os.remove()
2) delete the empty directory: os.rmdir()
3) remove empty directories and subdirectories: os.removedirs()
3) delete files in the directory and its subdirectories: shutil.rmtree()

Rmtree + exception handling:

#code : 

import shutil

def retreeExceptionHandler(fun,path,excinfo):

  print("Error:" + path)

  print(excinfo[1])

  

shutil.rmtree('c:\testfolder\test',ignore_errors=False,onerror=retreeExceptionHandler)

 

#result : 

Error:c:testfoldertestTest3

[Error 32] The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process: 'c:\testfolder\test\Test3'

Error:c:testfoldertest

[Error 145] The directory is not empty: 'c:\testfolder\test'

Using rmdir and remove is equivalent to rmtree:

#! /usr/bin/env python  

#coding=utf-8  

## {{{ Recipe 193736 (r1): Clean up a directory tree   

""" removeall.py: 

 

   Clean up a directory tree from root. 

   The directory need not be empty. 

   The starting directory is not deleted. 

   Written by: Anand B Pillai <abpillai@lycos.com> """  

  

import sys, os  

  

ERROR_STR= """Error removing %(path)s, %(error)s """  

  

def rmgeneric(path, __func__):  

  

    try:  

        __func__(path)  

        print 'Removed ', path  

    except OSError, (errno, strerror):  

        print ERROR_STR % {'path' : path, 'error': strerror }  

              

def removeall(path):  

  

    if not os.path.isdir(path):  

        return  

      

    files=os.listdir(path)  

  

    for x in files:  

        fullpath=os.path.join(path, x)  

        if os.path.isfile(fullpath):  

            f=os.remove  

            rmgeneric(fullpath, f)  

        elif os.path.isdir(fullpath):  

            removeall(fullpath)  

            f=os.rmdir  

            rmgeneric(fullpath, f) 

## End of recipe 193736 }}}

wildcards

Glob is python's own file operation-related module that allows you to find files that fit your purpose, similar to file search in Windows, and supports wildcard operations. ,[], * for 0 or more characters, ? Represents a character that [] matches a character in a specified range, such as [0-9] matches a number.

Its main way is glob, this method returns all matching path to the file list, this method needs a parameter used to match the specified path string (this string can be as an absolute path is a relative path), which returns the file name including the file name in the current directory only, do not include a folder in the file.