How to delete a directory in Java

Problem Description

How to delete a directory?

Solution

Following example demonstares how to delete a directory after deleting its files and directories by the use ofdir.isDirectory(),dir.list() and deleteDir() methods of File class.

import java.io.File;

public class Main {
   public static void main(String[] argv) throws Exception {
      deleteDir(new File("c:\\temp"));
   }
   public static boolean deleteDir(File dir) {
      if (dir.isDirectory()) {
         String[] children = dir.list();
         for (int i = 0; i < children.length; i++) {
            boolean success = deleteDir (new File(dir, children[i]));
            
            if (!success) {
               return false;
            }
         }
      }
      return dir.delete();
      System.out.println("The directory is deleted.");
   }
}

Result

The above code sample will produce the following result.

The directory is deleted.