Make behavior of removeDirectoryRecursive more consistent #16
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The way `removeDirectoryRecursive dir` works right now is totally
inconsistent:
- If there's a directory-like symbolic link, the function removes it
without recursing into it, *unless* the symbolic link is not
removable for some reason (e.g. no permission), in which case it
recurses into it and wipes out everything inside.
- If `dir` itself is actually a directory-like symbolic link, it will
recurse into it but fail to remove `dir` itself.
The causes of these two problems are:
- Instead of explicitly checking whether path refers to a true
directory, it assumes any unremovable file that also satisfies
`directoryExists` must necessarily be a directory. This is false,
because `directoryExists` dereferences the symbolic link.
- `getDirectoryContents` should not be called until `dir` is verified
to be a true directory.
There are two possible ways to handle the case where `dir` is not a true
directory:
- One can delete it silently, similar to the behavior of the POSIX
command `rm -r`.
- Or one can raise an error, similar to the behavior of the Python
function `shutil.rmtree`.
The former is more elegant to implement but for backward compatibility
`removeDirectoryRecursive` shall retain the Python-like behavior.
Another function `removePathRecursive` was added to implement the POSIX
behavior, although the decision of to export this function will be left
for the future.
On Windows, there are two kinds of symbolic links:
- directory symbolic links, and
- file symbolic links.
Directory symbolic links are treated as directories on Windows, which
means `lstat` considers them directories and `DeleteFile` doesn't work.
To remedy this, `removePathRecursive` was tweaked to handle these
unusual cases and avoid following symbolic links.
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Rufflewind
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Make behavior of removeDirectoryRecursive more consistent
bgamari
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Jul 29, 2016
bgamari
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Jul 29, 2016
Bug fix: equalFilePath "C:\\" "C:" == False
bgamari
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Jul 29, 2016
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Fixes #15.
While the POSIX-like behavior is more elegant to implement, for backward compatibility
removeDirectoryRecursiveshall retain the Python-like behavior. Another functionremovePathRecursivewas added to implement the POSIX behavior, although it is currently not exported.