Tries to cleanup / when run under webpack-dev-server

[jonathanperret]

Warning: try this in a VM/container/throwaway machine. There is a risk that files will be removed from all over the disk!

With the example webpack.config.js:

{
  output: {
    path: "/my/output/path"
  },
  plugins: [
    // Remove all the files from /my/output/path that are not generated by the
    // the current instance of the webpack compiler
    new WebpackCleanupPlugin()
  ]
}

If you try running webpack-dev-server:

$ npm install webpack-dev-server
$ ./node_modules/.bin/webpack-dev-server

You will end up with, if you're lucky, an error in recursiveReaddirSync:

Error: EBADF: bad file descriptor, lstat '/dev/fd/22'
    at Error (native)
    at Object.fs.lstatSync (fs.js:839:18)
    at …/node_modules/webpack-cleanup-plugin/node_modules/recursive-readdir-sync/index.js:12:16
    at Array.forEach (native)
    at recursiveReaddirSync (…/node_modules/webpack-cleanup-plugin/node_modules/recursive-readdir-sync/index.js:11:9)
    at …/node_modules/webpack-cleanup-plugin/node_modules/recursive-readdir-sync/index.js:14:26
    at Array.forEach (native)
    at recursiveReaddirSync (…/node_modules/webpack-cleanup-plugin/node_modules/recursive-readdir-sync/index.js:11:9)
    at /Users/Sebastien/code/boobsunit/boob_identity/node_modules/webpack-cleanup-plugin/node_modules/recursive-readdir-sync/index.js:14:26
    at Array.forEach (native) 

If you're unlucky, the scan will complete and WebpackCleanupPlugin will happily proceed with removing all the files from your disk.

This happens because webpack-dev-server forces the output path to /: https://github.com/webpack/webpack-dev-server/blob/5b94506/bin/webpack-dev-server.js#L142

Because webpack-dev-server uses an in-memory filesystem, it can get away with a / output path. Not so for WebpackCleanupPlugin, unfortunately.

[jonathanperret]

Note that at least one other plugin hit that issue: gajus/write-file-webpack-plugin#1

[gpbl]

Thanks for reporting. I never tested this plugin with the dev server. 😰

I think the best solution is explicitly requiring the path to delete from the constructor.

[kmcmichael-twist]

@gpbl Remove this repo and disable the npm package if you aren't going to fix this problem. You should have removed this in March until you addressed the issue.

[gpbl]

Yup @kmcmichael-twist sorry for the unforgivable delay 🙏
Released as v0.3.0 🎉