On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 6:22 AM, Xah Lee <xah...@gmail.com> wrote: > Xah wrote: > «In the emacs case: “Recursive delete of xx? (y or n) ”, what could it > possibly mean by the word “recursive” there? Like, it might delete the > directory but not delete all files in it? > » > > Jonathan de Boyne Pollard wrote: >> It might *try* to delete the directory but not any of its contents, >> yes. > > you mean theoretically you see a possibility if the dir is implement > as stilted as unix, but never in your life you find yourself might > want to do it?
There's a difference between working with a directory itself and working with files inside it. Generally, if you copy or delete a directory, you will want to recurse. But if you want to, for instance, wipe out all files whose names end with a tilde, then you might want to recurse and you might not. So it makes sense to offer the user a choice, and if recursive action is the only one that makes sense, at least acknowledge that the operation might take an arbitrarily long time. (Ever done a recursive operation on / on a large file system? Takes just a little bit longer than a non-recursive one under the same circumstances...) Chris Angelico -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
