C++/Win32: How to wait for a pending delete to complete

Question

Solved:

• Workable solution: sbi\'s answer
• Explanation for what really happens: Hans\'s answer
• Explanation for why OpenFile do

Answer 1

On Windows Vista/Windows 7 there is DeleteFileTransacted which deletes a file using transactions which ensures they are deleted (flushes file buffers, etc.). For Windows XP compatibility this is not an option though.

Another idea how this might be done is use OpenFile() with the flag OF_CREATE which sets the length to zero if the file exists or creates it if it doesn't and then to call FlushFileBuffers on the file handle to wait for this operation (making the file zero length) to complete. On completion, the file is of size 0 and then simply call DeleteFile.

You can later test if the file exists or if it has zero-length to treat it the same way.