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pythondirectorydelete-file

Deleting read-only directory in Python

shutil.rmtree will not delete read-only files on Windows. Is there a python equivalent of "rm -rf" ? Why oh why is this such a pain?

Solution

  • shutil.rmtree can take an error-handling function that will be called when it has problem removing a file. You can use that to force the removal of the problematic file(s).

    Inspired by http://mail.python.org/pipermail/tutor/2006-June/047551.html and http://techarttiki.blogspot.com/2008/08/read-only-windows-files-with-python.html:

    import os
import stat
import shutil

def remove_readonly(func, path, excinfo):
    os.chmod(path, stat.S_IWRITE)
    func(path)

shutil.rmtree(top, onerror=remove_readonly)

    (I haven't tested that snippet out, but it should be enough to get you started)