Is node.js rmdir recursive ? Will it work on non empty directories?

Question

The documentation for fs.rmdir is very short and doesn\'t explain the behavior of rmdir when the directory is not empty.

Q: What happens if I try to use

Answer 1

Here is an asynchronous recursive version that works with promises. I use the 'Q' library but anyone will do with a few changes (eg the 'fail' function).

To make use of it, we must make a few simple wrappers around some core Node functions, namely fs.stat, fs.readdir, fs.unlink and fs.rmdir to make them promise-friendly.

Here they are:

function getStat(fpath) {
  var def = Q.defer();
  fs.stat(fpath, function(e, stat) {
    if (e) { def.reject(); } else { def.resolve(stat); }
  });
  return def.promise;
}

function readdir(dirpath) {
  var def = Q.defer();
  fs.readdir(dirpath, function(e, files) {
    if (e) { def.reject(e); } else { def.resolve(files); }
  });
  return def.promise;
}

function rmFile(fpath) {
  var def = Q.defer();
  fs.unlink(fpath, function(e) { if(e) { def.reject(e); } else { def.resolve(fpath); }});
  return def.promise;
}

function rmDir(fpath) {
  var def = Q.defer(); 
  fs.rmdir(fpath, function(e) { if(e) { def.reject(e); } else { def.resolve(fpath); }});
  return def.promise;
}

So here is the recursive rm function:

var path = require('path');

function recursiveDelete(fpath) {
  var def = Q.defer();

  getStat(fpath)
  .then(function(stat) {
    if (stat.isDirectory()) {
      return readdir(fpath)
      .then(function(files) {
        if (!files.length) { 
          return rmDir(fpath);
        } else {
          return Q.all(files.map(function(f) { return recursiveDelete(path.join(fpath, f)); }))
          .then(function() { return rmDir(fpath); });
        }
      }); 
    } else {
      return rmFile(fpath);
    }
  })
  .then(function(res) { def.resolve(res); })
  .fail(function(e) { def.reject(e); })
  .done();
  return def.promise;
}