Remove all files and subfolders from directory

FinalBuilder Discussion
1

How do I remove all files and folders from a given directory.  I want to clean out an existing IIS directory without removing the root folder.  Do I need to iterate over each folder and do a seperate delete tree on it?  If so, how do I this?

2

Hi John,

Thanks for your post. Delete Tree is recursive, so if you use the Delete Directory action with "Delete Tree" then it should get rid of everything.

Regards,

Angus

3

Thanks for the reply, but I think you have missed the question.  I do not want to delete the top level folder.  I want to delete everything in the top level folder (both files and directories) and still have the top level folder when I am done.  How can I do this?

4

Hi John,

You’re right, I did miss the question. Sorry.

Is deleting the directory and then recreating it an option? That’s probably the simplest solution - Delete Directory then Create Directory.

Regards,

Angus

5

I think it is an option and i will try it that way.  I still think it would be nice to have a 'Clear Directory' type of action. Thanks.

6

I’ll add a recursive option to “Delete Files” to our to-do list, and note that deleting empty directories would be good as well. This would give you the results you’re after.

Regards,

Angus

7

 Hi, has anyone been able to figure this out? I'd still like to see a way to delete all files and subdirectories within a folder, but not the folder itself.

Deleting the folder and recreating it is not an option because I'd like to retain the security and share permissions on the folder.

8

Hi Sameer,

I've attached an example project that deletes all files and sub-directories within a folder.

Regards,
Paul.
 

DirectoryCleaner.fbz7 (2.099 KB)
9

Paul, great solution! Thanks so much! Didn’t even look in the iterators section…

10

I’m going to try out the directory cleaner method because I was coming here to report a problem I’d had with doing similar. It “works” to some degree when we tell it to delete tree followed immediately by a command to recreate the directory. However, it frequently fails saying that it can’t make the directory. I don’t know if it’s because it happens too fast or what.

I’m contemplating just having it pause after it executes the delete action, but I’d really rather not. Ideally I wouldn’t have it log every file deleted since it’s well over 1000 files, but perhaps that is something I could try to slow it down. (I’m using FB v 7.0.0.1753)