Using eclipse to sync an ftp folder with my local XAMPP installation I ran into he following situation. I ended up with a folder created on the remote machine called 'C:\xampp\tmp'
that I could not delete or even view properties or content of using any ftp client I could get hands on (filezilla, ncftp3, gnome ftp “server connect”). Since the folder was on webspace I thought: “Mmh, why not try php.” So I created a file called delfolder.php
right in the folder containing the miscurious c:
-directory and finally came up with this:
< ?php function rm_recursive($filepath) { if (is_dir($filepath) && !is_link($filepath)) { if ($dh = opendir($filepath)) { while (($sf = readdir($dh)) !== false) { if ($sf == '.' || $sf == '..' ) { continue; } if (!rm_recursive($filepath.'/'.$sf)) { throw new Exception($filepath.'/'.$sf.' could not be deleted.'); } } closedir($dh); } return rmdir($filepath); } return unlink($filepath); } // Path to directory you want to delete $directory = 'C:\xampp\tmp'; // Delete it if (rm_recursive($directory)) { echo "{$directory} has been deleted"; } else { echo "{$directory} could not be deleted"; } [/sourcecode] This, of course, only works if you have either direct access via shell (but than again why not just use rm -Rf 'C:\xampp\tmp') or FTP and web, i.e. HTTP, access to the folder in question.