Apologies, I did not copy the mailing list on part of the discussion. On 14 February 2012 20:48, Jim Meyering <j...@meyering.net> wrote: >>>I should have asked up front, >>>Have you considered the --ignore-fail-on-non-empty option?
>>Um, no! That's perfect. Not sure why I didn't see that before: either my eyes skipped it or I disregarded it but it's there, as plain as day. >> Actually it's not quite perfect I have to do 'rmdir -p >> --ignore-fail-on-non-empty a/b a/c a/d a/e' rather than my proposed >> 'rmdir -d a' but it'll do at a pinch. > or this: > rmdir -p --ig a/[bcde] This does solve the problem but means I have to list all of the leaf nodes of the branch I wish to remove. I still can't help but think there should be a --descendents option to allow a branch (of empty directories) to be removed more simply. The above would then simply become: $ rmdir -d a Even if directories b, c, d and e have children themselves.
