mkdir that overwrites any existing directory

Question

If I try to run mkdir build to create a build directory, if the directory already exists, this error is thrown: A subdirectory or file build already exists.. I need to delete and overwrite this directory. What is the command for that?

Solution 1

You can delete the build directory with

rd /s /q build

or

if exist build rd /s /q build

Solution 2

I wanted to create directory only if it does not exist
If it exists, nothing to do

Below worked great in the bat file:

if not exist someDir1 mkdir someDir1

Solution 3

I don't think it is possible to use the mkdir command to do that natively (though if you were will to do a bit more scripting, it would be possible).

A simple alternative is the following command in powershell:

New-Item path -type directory -force

Where path is something like C:\users\name\build

For more on New-Item see: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee176914.aspx

Comments

[Shawn Mclean]

I can't execute powershell as I'm calling this from a rake script.

[DavidPostill]

Please read the question again carefully. Your answer does not answer the original question. OP is using Windows not Unix.

[Harry Johnston]

For best results, run this command twice. It will sometimes fail if, e.g., Windows Search happens to be indexing that directory at just the wrong time.