Which is easier?

Vanilla rimraf:

var rimraf = require('rimraf');

rimraf(untrustedPath, { glob: false, });
rimraf('/path/to/file?', { glob: false, });
// Passing a trusted string and relying on cwd.
rimraf('tmp/*.o');

A wrapper, rimraf-noglob:

var rimraf = require('rimraf-noglob');

rimraf(untrustedPath);
rimraf('/path/to/file?');
// Passing a trusted string and relying on cwd, explicitly turn on globbing.
rimraf('tmp/*.o', { glob: {}, });

Usage

rimraf(f, [opts], callback)

Same as rimraf() except that opts.glob defaults to false.

rimraf.sync(f, [opts])

Same as rimraf.sync() except that opts.glob defaults to false.

CLI

This command will be available as rimraf-noglob <path> [<path> …]. It will handle parameter expansion similarly to your favorite CLI utility. Note that your shell may perform glob expansion for you unless if you are using Windows, in which case the libc of the exec()d node process will perform shell expansion based on CommandLine. If you want to be safe, either be certain that you’re using an Operating System that has POSIX-style processes or invoke the function via JavaScript directly.

In my opinion, rimraf-noglob has less surprising behavior than rimraf:

$ touch test\* test1 test2
$ rimraf test\*
$ ls | grep -e test
test1
test2
$ rimraf test\*
$ ls | grep -e test
$

What? It removed the exact match the first time but did glob expansion the second time?

$ touch test\* test1 test2
$ rimraf-noglob test\*
$ ls | grep -e test
test1
test2
$ rimraf-noglob test\*
$ ls | grep -e test
test1
test2
$

rimraf-noglob, especially in a POSIX shell, unconditionally exhibits the behavior expected of CLI programs. It lets the shell (or, on Windows, libc) handle globbing for normal arguments.

Version

For simplicity, this package’s MAJOR.MINOR will reflect the MAJOR.MINOR of the version of rimraf it depends on and is tested against. However, if changes to this project’s API are necessary, exceptions may have to be made in the future. Those will be documented here if that is ever the case.

Please open an issue if a new version of rimraf is missing or a backport is necessary.