Easiest way to rm -rf in Python

Question

What is the easiest way to do the equivalent of rm -rf in Python?

Answer 1

While useful, rmtree isn't equivalent: it errors out if you try to remove a single file, which rm -f does not (see example below).

To get around this, you'll need to check whether your path is a file or a directory, and act accordingly. Something like this should do the trick:

import os
import shutil

def rm_r(path):
    if os.path.isdir(path) and not os.path.islink(path):
        shutil.rmtree(path)
    elif os.path.exists(path):
        os.remove(path)

Note: this function will not handle character or block devices (that would require using the stat module).

Example in difference of between rm -f and Python's shutils.rmtree

$ mkdir rmtest
$ cd rmtest/
$ echo "stuff" > myfile
$ ls
myfile
$ rm -rf myfile 
$ ls
$ echo "stuff" > myfile
$ ls
myfile
$ python
Python 2.7.1+ (r271:86832, Apr 11 2011, 18:13:53) 
[GCC 4.5.2] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import shutil
>>> shutil.rmtree('myfile')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "", line 1, in 
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 236, in rmtree
    onerror(os.listdir, path, sys.exc_info())
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 234, in rmtree
    names = os.listdir(path)
OSError: [Errno 20] Not a directory: 'myfile'

Edit: handle symlinks; note limitations as per @pevik's comment