45

I have been trying to delete some symbolic links in my working directory, but I am facing some issues.

os.remove also removes the actual contents of the original folder of the link

os.shutil throws up an error in case of symbolic links.

Is there a way to remove a symbolic link using python commands without destroying the original content?

Thanks

6
  • 9
    Strange, os.remove() does not remove the original file for me, only the symlink (tried with Python 2.7.2 and 3.1.4). Commented Jul 28, 2012 at 11:28
  • 1
    It does not remove the original file neither at my system (Python 2.7.1) Commented Jul 28, 2012 at 11:29
  • Smth worth-looking on symlinks: stackoverflow.com/a/12678252/110118 (note: shutil.rmtree would fail to remove a link, despite os.path.osdir() saying the path pertains to a dir) Commented Aug 29, 2015 at 22:44
  • The question is about links to directories, not links to files. Removing links to directories does not work for me either. Python 2.6 Commented Jan 5, 2016 at 7:11
  • What is os.shutil? Commented Aug 11, 2017 at 1:42

5 Answers 5

62

os.unlink() works for me. It removes the symlink without removing the directory that it links to.

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3 Comments

Python 2.7 documentation say about unlink: This is the same function as remove();, how did it solved the problem?
This solution does not work on Windows for directory links created via mklink /D. See my answer below if that's your problem.
How does it work recursively to all symbolic links in a directory?
10

The accepted answer does not work on Windows with links created via mklink /D. If that is your problem the answer has been posted in this question: Delete Symlink to directory on Windows

The following code should work on both systems:

if(os.path.isdir(targetLink)):
    os.rmdir(targetLink)
else:
    os.unlink(targetLink)

Comments

7

Sorry,my Bad, I had made a stupid programming mistake : I was stupidly deleting the source instead of the links.

The correct answer is by @samfrances.

os.unlink does the trick.

In addition to this, here some other tips if you want to clear a directory using python:

Definitely not threadsafe, but you get the idea...

def rm(obj):

    if os.path.exists(obj):
        if os.path.isdir(obj):
            if os.path.islink(obj):
                 os.unlink(obj)
            else:
                shutil.rmtree(obj)
        else:
            if os.path.islink(obj):
                os.unlink(obj)
            else:
                os.remove(obj)

1 Comment

do if os.path.exists(obj) then if os.path.islink then if os.path.isdir. that way you don't need to have os.unlink twice.
3

in Python 3.4 and above, If link is a file, use unlink().

>>> from pathlib import Path
>>> p = Path('/some/file/')
>>> p.unlink()

If the path points to a directory, use Path.rmdir() instead.

>>> from pathlib import Path
>>> p = Path('/some/dir/')
>>> p.rmdir()

Comments

1

If the directory name contains a trailing slash, the linux rm command will follow the link and try to delete the directory. See Remove a symlink to a directory. The os.remove documentation says that it will give you an OSError if you try to remove a directory but maybe that doesn't always happen in the case of symlinks.

4 Comments

It says OSError: [Errno 1] Operation not permitted: 'test/' for me. Probably it's implementation dependent.
I don't have python handy. I should have said that this was a guess. I've edited the answer.
@JohnWatts Your answer is true, but this holds true only for symlinks created by the shell. symlinks created by os.symlink still give the same issue
@all: Edit:: Sorry... My Bad... I had made a stupid programming mistake... Was stupidly deleting the source instead of the links...gahhh... wasted almost a day on this...

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