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How Do You Delete All Files In A Directory?

How Do You Delete All Files In A Directory?

Question:
Deleting all files in a directory should bea basic function; however, I can’t seem tofind a function that will do this. Can you point me to a function that will do this, or give me an example of code that will do this?

Answer:
Unfortunately, you didn’t indicate which system your program needed to run on. If you are using 32-bit Windows, you can use the same function the Windows Explorer uses to delete directories, SHFileOperation. This function takes just one argument, an SHFILEOPSTRUCT structure that you must fill in with the appropriate information. SHFileOperation even displays the animated dialog box that Windows Explorer displays.

DOS, on the other hand, does not provide a routine to do this. Instead, you’d need to write code to recursively go into each subdirectory and delete any files there before deleting the parent directory.

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