Recursion for deleting

[Carey]

Having a bit of difficulty making a procedure that deletes all the dirs and files within a dir. Heres my code so far. Sorry about the lack of commenting and the messyness.

Turing:

var temp : string var streamNumber : int function slash : string     if length (Dir.Current) = 3 then  %if you are at the root of a drive         result ""     else         result "/"     end if end slash procedure delete2 (path : string)     Dir.Change (path)     temp := ""     streamNumber := Dir.Open (path)     assert streamNumber > 9     loop         temp := Dir.Get (streamNumber)         exit when temp = ""         if temp not= "." and temp not= ".." then             if Dir.Exists (temp) then                 delete2 (Dir.Current + slash + temp)             else                 File.Delete (temp)             end if         end if     end loop     Dir.Close (streamNumber)     Dir.Delete (path)     streamNumber := Dir.Open ("..") end delete2

Just call delete2 with the folder you want to delete as the parameter to test.

[ericfourfour]

All of that code can be replaced with Dir.Delete (path).

[Carey]

In what version of Turing? Ive got 4.0.5. is it different in 4.1?

Turing 4.0.5 Help wrote:

Dir.Delete is used to delete the directory specified by the parameter directoryPathName. This is the equivalent of doing a rmdir in DOS or UNIX. On the Macintosh, it removes a folder.

Dir.Delete will fail if it attempts delete a directory that has files in it.

[Carey]

Sorry about the double post, but does anybody have any suggestions? Or have i finally stumped the compsci.ca members?

[Cervantes]

Oh no, we're not stumped. Never!

Here you go. Feel free to ask questions.

Turing:

% don't give a final slash ("/") to the parameter for this procedure procedure del_dir (path : string)     var stream := Dir.Open (path)     loop         var next := Dir.Get (stream)         exit when next = ""         if File.Exists (path + "/" + next) then     % it's a file!             File.Delete (path + "/" + next)         % it's a directory! (but don't act on the current or parent directory)         elsif next ~= "." and next ~= ".." then             del_dir (path + "/" + next)             Dir.Delete (path + "/" + next)         end if     end loop     Dir.Close (stream)     Dir.Delete (path) end del_dir del_dir ("C:/test")

[BenLi]

potentially able to be put in bad use?

[Cervantes]

Potentially, yes. But it's a very good example of recursion; a good learning experience.

[Carey]

Thanks guys. I see what i did wrong now. I knew that stumped comment would get me some replys!!