Deleting a file or directory

Deleting a file or directory may seem a trivial task and it often is, but it has some hidden quirks that Groovy may help you with. This recipe will enlist and give details about several methods to delete a file or a directory.

Getting ready

Let's assume that we have two java.io.File variables: one pointing to a normal file and another to a nonempty directory with several subdirectories in it. For example:

def dir = new File('./tmp1')
def file = new File('./tmp2/test.txt')

As you know from Java, the java.io.File class has a delete method and it works perfectly in many situations. But it will only delete a normal file or an empty directory. So, to delete a nonempty directory you need to write a recursive function in Java. Also, in most of the situations, the delete method will not throw any exceptions; it will just return false if it fails to delete a file or directory.

How to do it...

Let's explore several ways to delete things on the file system.

1. To delete the nonempty...