godot: Directory must be open before using remove (3.2.3 rc1)

Godot version: 3.2.3 rc1

OS/device including version: macOS 10.15.5

Issue description: As of 3.2.3 rc1 you must open a directory before using remove. Prior to 3.2.3 rc1 you didn’t have to open up a directory to delete it, which makes sense. If you are attempting to delete a directory, then you probably don’t care if it doesn’t exist. If you did, you’ d check for it first. The new functionality might be the “right” way but I would argue it is a breaking change and shouldn’t be introduced in a patch.

Steps to reproduce: Assuming a directory user://foo exists and it is empty.

var d = Directory.new()
d.remove('user://foo') # this causes error, the directory is not removed.  this works in 3.2.2

Minimal reproduction project: See code. Should be enough.

About this issue

Original URL
State: closed
Created 4 years ago
Comments: 15 (12 by maintainers)

Most upvoted comments

The new behavior isn’t complicated, just different, and the behavior was intended by the start. All I did was fix the error condition.

Your PR isn’t complicated, but the repercussions of it are. Should a Directory instance:

be able to remove the directory it opened?
be able to remove paths that are not sub-paths of what it opened (i.e. opening res://foo but deleting from res://bar)?
what happens when whatever you have opened with open becomes invalid? For example you open res://foo in one Directory object, then delete res://foo in another Directory object. The first no longer is “open” to a valid directory.
Should each operation that requires a call to open verify that the path is still valid before each action?

bitwes on Jul 28, 2020

The new behavior is correct, the previous one was quite dangerous. Directory auto-opens res:// when it’s instantiated, so if you did:

var dir = Directory.new()
dir.remove("test")

It would remove the res://test folder, and this is unexpected for many users as the implementation detail of Directory starting in res:// by default is not known to all.

If you want to delete a folder in e.g. user://, you should open user:// (and thus have the Directory configured for access to the user:// filesystem), and then you can remove anything you want in user://.

akien-mga on Jul 27, 2020