Allow deleting non-empty directory when c.FileContentsManager.delete_to_trash = False

[albertmichaelj]

There has been a long standing issue at the Jupyter Lab repo around the inability to delete a non-empty directory (see comments jupyterlab/jupyterlab#835 (comment) and below for recent discussion). On some platforms (Mac OS for example), a non-empty directory can be deleted easily. However, on other platforms (including the official docker container jupyter/minimal-notebook), non-empty directories cannot be deleted. This appears to be an intentional design decision to not allow deletion of non-empty directories (see this code here).

However, there are lots of legitimate cases to delete a non-empty directory, so a much better solution would be to ask for confirmation before deleting the non-empty directory. Failing that, there should be a config parameter that allows for the deletion of non-empty directories.

Unfortunately, I'm not equipped to do development on the notebook server, so I cannot produce a pull request myself. Is this an issue that the maintainers are willing to consider?

[jasongrout]

One compelling usecase from jupyterlab/jupyterlab#835 (comment)

If the current design is intentional, one of the problems with it is when you have hidden files. For example, it's common to clone a git repo in various projects. All of the .git directory is hidden, and so you can never delete the repo without resorting to the command line. If this is a deliberate decision, I would encourage at least a config parameter in order to allow for the deletion of non-empty folders.

[jasongrout]

I can imagine one way to resolve this is to have a force flag in the rest api, like the -f in rm -rf, which will delete nonempty directories. Then jlab could call without the force flag, and if there is an error, could confirm with the user and call the rest api with the force flag.

[albertmichaelj]

I wanted to ping about this issue again. Is this something that maintainers might be willing to consider. This has ended up being a fairly significant problem for my use case (teaching non-sophisticated users in a JupyterHub deployment using git repositories for code distribution) due to hidden files that are very difficult to manually delete for non-sophisticated users. I'm in the process of reworking the JupyterHub deployment for the next academic year, and I would really like for the users to have an ability to delete a non-empty directory.

Happy to provide any more details if needed!

[hemangjoshi37a]

Has this been solved already??

[Dmitry1987]

Additional dialog box for confirmation, is what many other web UIs do. A flag for command line when we start the notebook server, would be a good solution as well. Would it be accepted if a PR is sent? It's a relatively simple patch for the filemanager.py code. I am actually surprised it is not a bug but a design decision.

[albertmichaelj]

@Dmitry1987 If you put together a pull request, I am happy to help with any testing. I think the problem is that if there is a way to send files to trash (which is what #3108 seemed to be allowing) then you can delete non-empty directories. However, there is a bug in using Docker containers that use the Overlay-FS (see #3130) that means that in a Docker container, you need to set c.FileContentsManager.delete_to_trash = False. I think a better solution would be just a dialog box that asks if you really want to delete the directory (with language like "This can not be undone.") would be a better approach instead of just refusing to delete non-empty directories.

Again, I'm very happy to help with any testing/feedback if you put together a pull request!

[Dmitry1987]

thanks for your suggestion @albertmichaelj I will try that setting to see if it works.
Could you point me to the function I can use to display a dialog box and collect the response with? I might be able to make the PR with that

[albertmichaelj]

Unfortunately, I have no idea what functions display dialogue boxes. If I had a better understanding of the notebook code base, I'd try a PR myself.

Like I said, if I can help with testing, I'd be happy to.

[Dmitry1987]

I tried the flag of c.FileContentsManager.delete_to_trash = False, added it to config and restarted everything, but looks like it had no effect :( . Seems like this is a default behavior of that function.. are you able to delete non-empty folders @albertmichaelj ? if so, mind sharing the config file sections that might be relevant as well, to that functionality? thanks for trying to help 👍

[W 2020-05-19 00:29:20.409 SingleUserNotebookApp handlers:236] delete /shared_disk/somefolder
[W 2020-05-19 00:29:20.410 SingleUserNotebookApp web:1786] 400 DELETE /user/dima1987/api/contents/shared_disk/somefolder (xxxxxx): Directory /home/ds-team/shared_disk/somefolder not empty
[W 2020-05-19 00:29:20.410 SingleUserNotebookApp handlers:620] Directory /home/ds-team/shared_disk/somefolder not empty
[W 2020-05-19 00:29:20.411 SingleUserNotebookApp log:174] 400 DELETE /user/dima1987/api/contents/shared_disk/somefolder (dima1987@xxxxxxx) 2.31ms

[Dmitry1987]

I guess the solution in my case would be just to patch the relevant file, and rebuild the notebook, each time in our CI, before it gets deployed. We run a CI that rebuilds kernels (the data team keeps a list of kernel names and the packages they'd like to have, so when they modify these files, we rebuild and redeploy it), so it can also patch the code after "pip install ..." of the notebook. But it'll need to be maintained alongside newer versions, and it's a pain to do every time. Maybe I can use the repo as a source instead of pip package, so it'll be patched by git command, can be a longer term solution (the patch will work for newer versions until there's a conflict in same file)

[albertmichaelj]

@Dmitry1987 You need to set c.FileContentsManager.delete_to_trash = True to get it to delete to trash. The default behavior is True, but I'm guessing that somehow it is sest to False in a config. Are you using the Jupyter docker notebooks by any chance? If so, it is set here.

Hope that helps, but as for this issue, I still think that we should be able to delete folders that aren't empty with a dialogue box.

[Dmitry1987]

thanks @albertmichaelj , I do use the docker versions, but I am running it on linux, if I set to "True" doesn't it look for windows trash bin only in windows related parts of the code?

I'll try the "True" setting today and will post results, thanks :)