[HADOOP-771] Namenode should return error when trying to delete non-empty directory

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 0.8.0
• Fix Version/s: 0.17.0

Environment

all

• Hadoop Flags: Incompatible change

Release Note

This patch adds a new api to file system i.e delete(path, boolean), deprecating the previous delete(path).
the new api recursively deletes files only if boolean is set to true.
If path is a file, the boolean value does not matter, if path is a directory and the directory is non empty delete(path, false) will throw an exception and delete(path, true) will delete all files recursively.

• Assignee: Mahadev Konar
• Reporter: Milind Barve
• Created: 30/Nov/06 23:03
• Updated: 08/Jul/09 16:42
• Resolved: 10/Mar/08 18:58

Description

Currently, the namenode.delete() method allows recursive deletion of a directory. That is, even a non-empty directory could be deleted using namenode.delete(). To avoid costly programmer errors, the namenode should not remove the non-empty directories in this method. Recursively deleting directory should either be performed with listPaths() followed by a delete() for every path, or with a specific namenode method such as deleteRecursive().

Issue Links

• relates to: HADOOP-3025 ChecksumFileSystem needs to support the new delete method