can not delete a file

Hello everyone,


I am using the following program to delete all files in a specified directory. But when running, no files could be deleted, and the related error information is,

failed with error 5 -- access denied. Anything wrong with the program?

Code:

---

remove_non_empty_directory ("c:\\temp\\non_empty_dir\\*");

// ErrorExit implementation from MSDN
// http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms680582.aspx

int remove_non_empty_directory (const char* path)
{

  WIN32_FIND_DATA FindFileData;
  HANDLE hFind;
  int rtn;

  hFind = FindFirstFile(path, &FindFileData);
  if (hFind == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
  {
        FindClose(hFind);
        return -1;
  }
  else
  {
      // delete 1st file
      rtn = DeleteFile(&(FindFileData.cFileName));

      if (0 == rtn)
      {
        ErrorExit (NULL);
      }

      // List all the other files in the directory and delete all files
      while (FindNextFile(hFind, &FindFileData) != 0)
      {
            rtn = DeleteFile(&(FindFileData.cFileName));
      }

      FindClose(hFind);
  }

  return 0;
       
}

---

thanks in advance,
George

What file are you trying to delete when it fails? You can't delete directories, so that may be a problem - perhaps you're trying to delete "." or ".."?

--
Mats

It's windows related (should go in the Windows programming board), but anyway.

DeleteFile is relative to the current working directory, so you want to delete the file via it's full path.

Such that

Code:

---


char fullPath[MAX_PATH];
/* ... */
/* in the loop */
sprintf(fullPath, "c:\\temp\\non_empty_dir\\%s", FindFileData.cFileName);
DeleteFile(fullPath);

---

Or set the Working directory to that directory you are scanning (SetCurrentDirectory() or something)

hth.

Zacs, yes, that's another good point - and although this code is written with Windows API, the same would apply if it was written with standard C functions - they file you delete is relative to current directory.

There's still no code to check if the name is "." or ".." tho', which shouldn't really be deleted.

--
Mats

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by matsp

There's still no code to check if the name is "." or ".." tho', which shouldn't really be deleted.

---

However, that being said you should check if it's a file.

> rtn = DeleteFile(&(FindFileData.cFileName));
So do you use & because you really like them, or just so you can see warnings in your code and ignore them?

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa363915.aspx

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by zacs7

However, that being said you should check if it's a file.

---

You mean as opposed to a directory? Yes, good point. But even so, "." and ".." would need special treatment, as you still don't want to delete those (and I dont _THINK_ it's "ok" to create a file called ".." in the root of a FAT/NTFS file-system).

..
Mats

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by matsp

You mean as opposed to a directory? Yes, good point. But even so, "." and ".." would need special treatment, as you still don't want to delete those (and I dont _THINK_ it's "ok" to create a file called ".." in the root of a FAT/NTFS file-system).

..
Mats

---

Apparently nor ext2/3