Question

Delete all files in a certain directory at once?

Asked by: Ike23

I created a document management system that will allow upload/download/delete capabilities on a single document level.  I can create folders to contain groups of documents but I can only delete them one at a time so far.  Is it possible to delete the entire contents of a directory (folder) at once with ColdFusion?

Thanks in advance.

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Asked On
2005-03-19 at 13:07:15ID21357274
Tags

delete

,

directory

,

all

,

files

,

coldfusion

Topic

ColdFusion Application Server

Participating Experts
2
Points
400
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: Tacobell777Posted on 2005-03-19 at 14:35:54ID: 13583673

<cfset myDir = "c:\temp\" />
<cfdirectory action="list" name="qDir" directory="#myDir#" />
<cfloop query="qDir">
<cfif qDir.type IS "file" >
      <cffile action="delete" file="#myDir##qDir.name#" />
</cfif>
</cfloop>

I think that does it of the top of my head.

 

by: Ike23Posted on 2005-03-19 at 16:06:32ID: 13584004

But is there a function that will delete the entire folder or is that not possible through CF?

 

by: Tacobell777Posted on 2005-03-19 at 17:08:13ID: 13584132

no there is not one function that does that

 

by: INSDivision6Posted on 2005-03-21 at 11:01:03ID: 13594125

You can use CFEXECUTE to execute a DOS command to delete all files in a directory in one shot.

 

by: Ike23Posted on 2005-03-21 at 16:08:19ID: 13597006

That would be sweet but is it safe?  I would first want to have a validation that the user does in fact want to delete the folder and it's contents.  Actually I have the function to delete the folder but only if it is empty.  Have you tried using the CFEXECUTE method before?  Thanks.

 

by: INSDivision6Posted on 2005-03-21 at 19:52:44ID: 13597955

First of all, you have to use two commands (assuming you under Windows):

"cmd.exe /c del c:\download\*.*"    <!--- delete all files --->

and

"cmd.exe /c rmdir c:\download"     <!--- delete directory --->

You can combine them in a single batch file also.  Strictly speaking this has the same effect, as CFDIRECTORY/CFFILE.  You asked for a single "function".  This is it.

 

by: Tacobell777Posted on 2005-03-21 at 23:10:38ID: 13598638

Using cfexecute won't tell you when there is a problem deleting a file though, with cffile you can catch the error.
For example when a file cannot be deleted because there is a lock on the file.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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