In this example we shall show you how to delete a file or directory. We are using the File class that is an abstract representation of file and directory pathnames. To delete a file or directory one should perform the following steps:
- Create a new File instance by converting the given pathname string into an abstract pathname.
- Use
delete()API method of File. This method deletes the file or directory denoted by this abstract pathname. If this pathname denotes a directory, then the directory must be empty in order to be deleted. Note that the Files class defines the delete method to throw an IOException when a file cannot be deleted.
Let’s take a look at the code snippet below:
package com.javacodegeeks.snippets.core;
import java.io.File;
public class DeleteFileDirectory {
public static void main(String[] args) {
// delete file
File file = new File("C://deleteme.txt");
boolean fileDeleted = file.delete();
System.out.println("File deleted: " + fileDeleted);
// delete directory
File dir = new File("C://deletemedir/");
boolean dirDeleted = dir.delete();
System.out.println("File deleted: " + dirDeleted);
}
}
This was an example of how to delete a file or directory in Java.
