std::filesystem::remove, std::filesystem::remove_all

Defined in header `<filesystem>`
bool remove(const std::filesystem::path& p); bool remove(const std::filesystem::path& p, std::error_code& ec) noexcept;	(1)	(since C++17)
std::uintmax_t remove_all(const std::filesystem::path& p); std::uintmax_t remove_all(const std::filesystem::path& p, std::error_code& ec) noexcept;	(2)	(since C++17)

1) 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)

2) 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)

Parameters

p	-	path to delete
ec	-	out-parameter for error reporting in the non-throwing overload

Return value

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

2) 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.

Exceptions

The overload that does not take a std::error_code& parameter throws filesystem_error on underlying OS API errors, constructed with p as the first argument and the OS error code as the error code argument. std::bad_alloc may be thrown if memory allocation fails. The overload taking a std::error_code& parameter sets it to the OS API error code if an OS API call fails, and executes ec.clear() if no errors occur.

Notes

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

Example

Run this code

#include <iostream>
#include <cstdint>
#include <filesystem>
namespace fs = std::filesystem;
int main()
{
    fs::path dir = fs::temp_directory_path();
    fs::create_directories(dir / "abcdef/example");
    std::uintmax_t n = fs::remove_all(dir / "abcdef");
    std::cout << "Deleted " << n << " files or directories\n";
}

Possible output:

Deleted 2 files or directories

Language
Standard library headers
Concepts
Utilities library
Strings library
Containers library
Algorithms library
Iterators library
Numerics library
Input/output library
Localizations library
Regular expressions library (C++11)
Atomic operations library (C++11)
Thread support library (C++11)
Filesystem library (C++17)
Technical Specifications