std::filesystem::remove, std::filesystem::remove_all - cppreference.com (original) (raw)

1,2) The file or empty directory identified by the path p is deleted as if by the POSIX remove. Symlinks are not followed (symlink is removed, not its target).

3,4) Deletes the contents of p (if it is a directory) and the contents of all its subdirectories, recursively, then deletes p itself as if by repeatedly applying the POSIX remove. Symlinks are not followed (symlink is removed, not its target).

Contents

• 1 Parameters
• 2 Return value
• 3 Exceptions
• 4 Notes
• 5 Example
• 6 Defect reports
• 7 See also

[edit] Parameters

[edit] Return value

1,2) true if the file was deleted, false if it did not exist. The overload that takes error_code& argument returns false on errors.

3,4) Returns the number of files and directories that were deleted (which may be zero if p did not exist to begin with). The overload that takes error_code& argument returns static_cast<std::uintmax_t>(-1) on error.

[edit] Exceptions

Any overload not marked noexcept may throw std::bad_alloc if memory allocation fails.

1,3) Throws std::filesystem::filesystem_error on underlying OS API errors, constructed with p as the first path argument and the OS error code as the error code argument.

2,4) Sets a std::error_code& parameter to the OS API error code if an OS API call fails, and executes ec.clear() if no errors occur.

[edit] Notes

On POSIX systems, this function typically calls unlink and rmdir as needed, on Windows DeleteFileW and RemoveDirectoryW.

If p did not exist, this function returns false and does not report an error.

[edit] Example

Possible output:

remove(): true remove(): false remove_all(): 2 files or directories

[edit] Defect reports

The following behavior-changing defect reports were applied retroactively to previously published C++ standards.

[edit] See also