From: Chris Morris <chrismo@...>
Date: 2003-10-08T22:16:02+09:00
Subject: Re: How to delete read-only files with Ruby commands

Gavin Sinclair wrote:

>  require 'fileutils'
>
>  FileUtils.rm_rf(directory)               # trash a directory tree
>  FileUtils.cp(src, dest, :force => true)  # copy over a RO file
>
>These use Unix names, but I imagine it will work on Windows.
>
Looks like it will (remove_file is ultimately called by rm_rf and 
variants...)

      def remove_file( fname, force = false ) #:nodoc:
        first_time_p = true
        begin
          File.unlink fname
        rescue Errno::ENOENT
          raise unless force
        rescue
          if first_time_p
            # try once more for Windows
            first_time_p = false
            File.chmod 0777, fname
            retry
          end
          raise
        end
      end

A slightly more direct version, which I know is good for Windows, but 
not verified on *nix[1]:

        files.each do |file|
          # make writable to allow deletion
          File.chmod(0644, file)
          File.delete(file)
        end

[1] from http://www.clabs.org/dl/clutil/

-- 

Chris
http://clabs.org/blogki