Gulp: How to delete a folder?

Question

I use the del package to delete a folder:

gulp.task('clean', function(){
    return del('dist/**/*', {force:true});
});

...But is there any easy way to delete the dist folder and all of its contents if it contains many subdirectories [recursively]?

Ps: I don't want to do it this way: dist/**/**/**/**/**/**/..., when there are many subdirectories.

Answer 1

your code should look like this:

gulp.task('clean', function(){
     return del('dist/**', {force:true});
});

according to the npm del docs "**" deletes all the subdirectories of dist (ps: don't delete dist folder):

"The glob pattern ** matches all children and the parent."

reference

Answer 2

According to the documentation : The glob pattern ** matches all children and the parent. You have to explicitly ignore the parent directories too

gulp.task('clean', function(){
     return del(['dist/**', '!dist'], {force:true});
});

More info available here : del documentation