emptydir

You now get to delete files recursively while preserving the directories from Node.Js and your terminal.

installation

You require npm to install/download this module.

npm install emptydir

If you wish to install it globally on your machine:

npm install -g emptydir

The module emptydir will be added in the correct node_modules directory and the command emptydir will be added to your terminal.

usage

from Node.Js (programmatic)

var emptydir = require('emptydir');

/* 
* Assuming the variable 'my_path' holds a path to
* a folder on your machine
*/

/*
* errs will be an array with all the errors that occurred
* Otherwise null on success
*/
emptydir.emptyDir(my_path, function (errs) {
    if (errs) {
        errs.forEach(function (err) {
            console.log(err.path + " failed due to " + err.code);
        });
    }
});

/*
* callback is called per file(and not directory) being worked on.
* err is null on success
*/
emptydir.emptyDirs(my_path, function (err, path) {
    if (err) {
        console.log("Failed: " + path);
    }
    console.log("Success: " + path);
});

/*
* Synchronous. Returns an array of all the errors that occurred while
* working on the files in the directory.
* On success, returns an empty array. Thus it is safe to immediately
* loop through the errors in the array.
*/
errs = emptydir.emptyDirsSync(my_path);
errs.forEach(function () {
    console.log(err.path + " failed due to " + err.code);
});

notes

By saying working on a file, we mean to try and remove it.

All of the methods:

1. If the path passed is a file, it is simply deleted. It's 'not amust the path points to a directory.
2. Symbolic links are not dereferenced. They are deleted equally as files.

Any of the Asynchronous methods:

1. If a callback is not passed, the methods will complete as would have if callback was passed.

emptydir.emptyDir(path [, callback])

1. Callback is called only once after the working on the files is complete.
2. On error, a list of all errors occurred during the recursive removal is passed to the callback.
3. On success, error will be null

emptydir.emptyDirs(path [, callback])

1. The callback is called each time a file is worked on.
2. path of the file worked on is always passed as the second argument to the callback on both success and error.

emptydir.emptyDirsSync(path)

1. The return value will always be an array. Thus no need to test for that.

Note: The idea of the methods is to keep going even when an error is encountered. This ensures we remove as much files as possible.

from your terminal (commandline)

# output help info about available options.
$ emptydir -h
$ emptydir --help
...
# show the version number of emptydir installed.
$ emptydir --version
...
# empty directoryA
$ emptydir directoryA
...
# empty directoryA and directoryB
$ emptydir directoryA directoryB
...
# be verbose while emptying directoryA
$ emptydir -v directoryA
$ emptydir --verbose directoryA

notes

1. If a regular file, instead of a directory, is passed to emptydir it will just be deleted, if possible.
2. Verbose option is unstable and may gave you false errors. That is, emptydir may remove some files but the commandline runner may report them back as failed.

version info

|Aspect|Detail| |------|------:| |version|0.0.0| |nodejs|0.10.*, 0.8.*| |dependencies|none| |last updated|28th July, 2014|

contribution

Fork this repo, hack it and send a Pull Request. Please try and include a test as in the tests directory.

If you encounter a bug, even if you could fix it yourself (a pull request would be better in this case), please create an issue.

Also some geek talk is appreciated at @MUGO_GOCHO.

license

This source code is licensed under the MIT license.