2.4: Renaming, Copying and Deleting Files and Directories

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Files may be copied and renamed using the messages copyTo: and renameTo:. Note that while copyTo: tasks as argument another fileReference, renameTo: takes a path, pathname or reference.

| working |
working := FileSystem disk workingDirectory.
working / 'foo.txt' writeStreamDo: [ :stream | stream nextPutAll: 'Hello World' ].
working / 'foo.txt' copyTo: (working / 'bar.txt').

| working |
working := FileSystem disk workingDirectory.
working / 'bar.txt' readStreamDo: [ :stream | stream contents ].
    → 'Hello World'

| working |
working := FileSystem disk workingDirectory.
working / 'foo.txt' renameTo: 'skweek.txt'.

| working |
working := FileSystem disk workingDirectory.
working / 'skweek.txt' readStreamDo: [ :stream | stream contents ].
    → 'Hello World'

Directory creation. To create a directory, use the message createDirectory as follows:

| working |
working := FileSystem disk workingDirectory.
backup := working / 'cache-backup'.
backup createDirectory.
backup isDirectory.
    → true
backup children.
    → #()

Copy everything. You can copy the contents of a directory using the message copyAllTo:. Here we copy the complete package-cache to the backup directory using copyAllTo::

cache copyAllTo: backup.

Note that before copying the target directory is created if it does not exist.

Deleting. To delete a single file, use the message delete:

(working / 'bar.txt') delete.

To delete a complete directory tree (including the receiver) use deleteAll. Be careful to not delete the wrong folder though.

backup deleteAll.