[Yanel-dev] Yarep delete method

[Josias Thöny]

Michael Wechner wrote:
> Josias Thöny wrote:
> 
>> Michael Wechner wrote:
>>
>>> Hi
>>>
>>> I have noticed that according to the API calling delete also is 
>>> supposed to delete all children resp. also non-empty collections
>>>
>>> src/core/java/org/wyona/yarep/core/Node.java
>>>
>>>    /**
>>>     * Deletes this node and all subnodes.
>>>     * The root node cannot be deleted.
>>>     * @throws RepositoryException if this node is the root node or if 
>>> a repository error occurs.
>>>     */
>>>    public void delete() throws RepositoryException;
>>>
>>>
>>> Shouldn't we introduce something like
>>>
>>>
>>> delete(boolean recursive)
>>>
>>> which would allow to block the deletion of non-empty collections when 
>>> being set to delete(false)
>>>
>>
>> IIUC this would mean that a caller of delete(false) has to check 
>> afterwards if the operation has been successful.
>> Then you could as well check if the node has any child nodes before 
>> you call delete().
>> Where do you see the advantage of using delete(false)?
> 
> 
> I think it's a bit more convenient
> 
> node.delete(false)
> 
> versus
> 
> if (node.getNodes().length == 0) node.delete()

Hm, but you also have to handle the case where the node has some children.
Then the first option becomes something like:

boolean success = node.delete(false);
if (!success) {
   throw new Exception("cannot delete node, maybe it has some child-nodes");
}

and the second option:

if (node.getNodes().length == 0) {
   node.delete();
} else {
   throw new Exception("cannot delete node because it has child-nodes");
}

So you need the "if" in both cases and the complexity is about the same.
Personally I like the second one better, because in the first one you 
don't know why a node could not be deleted if the method returns false.

Josias

> 
> but I am also fine with it as it is, because one could argue that when 
> using delete() within a program, one
> normally doesn't do things by accident, whereas when using the "rm" on 
> the command line one often deletes stuff by accident.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Michi
> 
>>
>> josias
>>
>>> ?
>>>
>>> This would corrspond to rm -r
>>>
>>> WDYT?
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>>
>>> Michi
>>>
>>
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> 
> 
>