What does "Directory.Delete( "path", false )" do?

Question

According to the doucmentation for "Directory.Delete( "path", true )", it remove directories, subdirectories, and files in the path.

What does Directory.Delete( "path", false ) do? According to the doucmentation it does "otherwise".

I mean how can you delete a directory without removing the directory, subdirectories, and files?

Answer 1

Just a quick guess, since I don't do .Net, but I'd say it will only remove empty directories.

Answer 2

Second argument tells whether you want a recursive delete. If it's false, the method will throw an IOException if the directory is not empty.

Answer 3

Bill James is correct. According to MSDN, if the recursive parameter is false and the directory is not empty, IOException will be thrown.

Answer 4

Suppose the intent of the code is to delete directories only if they're empty. Setting the second parameter to false enforces that policy/intent.