How to Delete a File in Ruby

If you want to delete a file in Ruby, you can use the File#delete method.

File.delete("test.txt")

You can also delete a file using the FileUtils#rm method from the FileUtils module.

require "fileutils"
FileUtils.rm("test.txt")

Deleting Multiple Files

If you want to delete multiple files at once, you can use the FileUtils#rm_rf method, which is also part of the FileUtils module.

require "fileutils"
FileUtils.rm_rf(["test1.txt", "test2.txt"])

Both of these methods will delete the file permanently & there’s no way to undo it, so be careful.

Deleting Directories

Deleting directories is a bit different; you can’t use the File#delete method for that.

Instead, you need to use the Dir#rmdir method.

Dir.rmdir("some_directory")

The Dir#rmdir method will only delete empty directories.

If you want to delete a non-empty directory, you can use the FileUtils#rm_rf method.

Deleting Symbolic Links (Symlink)

You need to use the File#unlink method when deleting symbolic links.

File.unlink("some_symlink")

Summary

In this article, you’ve learned how to delete a file, directory, or symlink using the File#delete, FileUtils#rm, FileUtils#rm_rf, Dir#rmdir and File#unlink methods. You can check the official documentation here.

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