Norbert Preining wrote:

Hi all,

for the TeX Live uninstaller I am trying to write a rmdir function for win32 in texlua which should work like rm -rf on unix.

My first try was: function rmdir(dirn) if os.type == 'windows' then -- we have to replace all / with \ foo = string.gsub(dirn, '/', '\\') ret = os.spawn({"rmdir", "/s", "/q", foo}) else ret = os.spawn({"rm", "-rf", dirn}) end if ret then return ret else io.stderr:write(filename..': removing '..dirn.." didn't work\n") end return ret end

(No checks by now, will come later ...)

But that didn't work and did spit out always the io.stderr message.

rmdir is a system command (1) use os.execute for system commands (2) in the case of gnutools (you can never be sure it they are installed, use the funny cygwin syntax or so) anyhow, this works: function rmdir(name) if os.type == 'windows' then os.execute("rmdir /s /q " .. name:gsub('/', '\\')) else os.spawn({"rm", "-rf", dirn}) end local ok = lfs.attributes(name) if ok then io.stderr:write(string.format("removing '%s' didn't work our well\n",name)) end return ok end concerning your code:

if os.type == 'windows' then foo = string.gsub(dirn, '/', '\\') ret = os.spawn({"rmdir", "/s", "/q", foo})

local ret if os.type == 'windows' then local foo = string.gsub(dirn, '/', '\\') ret = os.spawn({"rmdir", "/s", "/q", foo}) in order not to polute the global namespace ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------