File::Path(3)                    Perl Programmers Reference Guide                   File::Path(3)



NAME
       File::Path - create or remove directory trees

SYNOPSIS
           use File::Path;

           mkpath(['/foo/bar/baz', 'blurfl/quux'], 1, 0711);
           rmtree(['foo/bar/baz', 'blurfl/quux'], 1, 1);

DESCRIPTION
       The "mkpath" function provides a convenient way to create directories, even if your
       "mkdir" kernel call won't create more than one level of directory at a time.  "mkpath"
       takes three arguments:

       ?   the name of the path to create, or a reference to a list of paths to create,

       ?   a boolean value, which if TRUE will cause "mkpath" to print the name of each directory
           as it is created (defaults to FALSE), and

       ?   the numeric mode to use when creating the directories (defaults to 0777), to be modi-
           fied by the current umask.

       It returns a list of all directories (including intermediates, determined using the Unix
       '/' separator) created.

       If a system error prevents a directory from being created, then the "mkpath" function
       throws a fatal error with "Carp::croak". This error can be trapped with an "eval" block:

         eval { mkpath($dir) };
         if ($@) {
           print "Couldn't create $dir: $@";
         }

       Similarly, the "rmtree" function provides a convenient way to delete a subtree from the
       directory structure, much like the Unix command "rm -r".  "rmtree" takes three arguments:

       ?   the root of the subtree to delete, or a reference to a list of roots.  All of the
           files and directories below each root, as well as the roots themselves, will be
           deleted.

       ?   a boolean value, which if TRUE will cause "rmtree" to print a message each time it
           examines a file, giving the name of the file, and indicating whether it's using
           "rmdir" or "unlink" to remove it, or that it's skipping it.  (defaults to FALSE)

       ?   a boolean value, which if TRUE will cause "rmtree" to skip any files to which you do
           not have delete access (if running under VMS) or write access (if running under
           another OS).  This will change in the future when a criterion for 'delete permission'
           under OSs other than VMS is settled.  (defaults to FALSE)

       It returns the number of files successfully deleted.  Symlinks are simply deleted and not
       followed.

       NOTE: There are race conditions internal to the implementation of "rmtree" making it
       unsafe to use on directory trees which may be altered or moved while "rmtree" is running,
       and in particular on any directory trees with any path components or subdirectories poten-
       tially writable by untrusted users.

       Additionally, if the third parameter is not TRUE and "rmtree" is interrupted, it may leave
       files and directories with permissions altered to allow deletion (and older versions of
       this module would even set files and directories to world-read/writable!)

       Note also that the occurrence of errors in "rmtree" can be determined only by trapping
       diagnostic messages using $SIG{__WARN__}; it is not apparent from the return value.

DIAGNOSTICS
       ?   On Windows, if "mkpath" gives you the warning: No such file or directory, this may
           mean that you've exceeded your filesystem's maximum path length.

AUTHORS
       Tim Bunce <> and Charles Bailey <>



perl v5.8.8                                 2001-09-21                              File::Path(3)