How can I remove files with a specific file extension in Rust

Question

I need to remove all the files with ".html" extension from a specific directory in Rust.

Do you have any ideas of how can I do that?

Answer 1

There are 2 parts to removing a file:

1. Finding the file
2. Removing the file

You can easily find the file in Rust by iterating over every file in a directory and checking the extension, like so:

use std::fs;

for path in fs::read_dir("/path/to/dir").unwrap() {
    let path = path.unwrap().path();
    let extension = path.extension().unwrap();
}

Now you can use extension to do whatever you want, for example check if it's html and remove the file, like so:

use std::ffi::OsStr;
if extension == OsStr::new("html") {
    fs::remove_file(path).unwrap();
}

Playground (not to actually run it, but to show the full code)

---

Alternatively, you can use a crate like glob to make your life easier. Using glob makes your code this:

use glob::glob;
for path in glob("/path/to/dir/*.html").unwrap() {
    match path {
        Ok(path) => {
            println!("Removing file: {:?}", path.display());
            std::fs::remove_file(path);
        },
        Err(e) => println!("{:?}", e);
    }
}

glob wiki article for if you don't know what a glob is