A std::fs::remove_dir_all replacement using the Windows Shell and Property System APIs on
Windows.
The current Windows implementation of remove_dir_all in the Rust standard library has a
long-standing issue with consistently deleting directories. The Windows Shell and Windows
Property System APIs both provide methods for recursively deleting directories with consistent
results by way of SHFileOperationW and IFileOperation, respectively, although a stable
solution compatible with UWP apps has not been settled on in the context of the associated
GitHub issue.
This crate provides a remove_dir_all implementation based on both SHFileOperationW and
IFileOperation, with the former used as a fallback if the latter is not supported
(IFileOperation is recommended over SHFileOperationW, but it is only supported on
Windows Vista and later). For non-Windows platforms, the standard library remove_dir_all
function is re-exported for convenience.
Due to the lack of Shell and Property System API support for UWP apps, UWP app developers are
recommended to use the remove_dir_all crate instead, as it provides an alternative
implementation that does not rely on the Shell or Property System APIs.
Add this to your Cargo.toml:
[dependencies]
win32-remove-dir-all = "0.1"The minimum supported Rust version is 1.37. This is largely due to language features used by dependencies and may be subject to change in later releases.
The remove_dir_all function provided by this crate can be used as a drop-in replacement for
std::fs::remove_dir_all, even in code targeting multiple platforms; std::fs::remove_dir_all
will be used automatically on non-Windows targets.
use std::{error::Error, fs, path::Path};
use win32_remove_dir_all::remove_dir_all;
fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn Error>> {
// Create a directory with a couple files residing in it.
fs::create_dir("foo")?;
fs::OpenOptions::new().create(true).write(true).open("foo/bar")?;
fs::OpenOptions::new().create(true).write(true).open("foo/baz")?;
// Delete the directory and all its contents as you would with `std::fs::remove_dir_all`.
remove_dir_all("foo")?;
Ok(())
}Disabling Property System (IFileOperation) Support
Support for IFileOperation is gated behind the property_system_api crate feature, which is
enabled by default. It is not necessary to disable this feature in order to support Windows
versions prior to Windows Vista, as SHFileOperationW will be used instead if
IFileOperation is unavailable. It can still be disabled if desired, such as if build times
or sizes are of concern, in which case SHFileOperationW will always be used regardless of
the Windows version.
Licensed under either of
- Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
- MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
at your option.
Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.