removeSync() does not error if file to remove exists, but is not writable.

[rhwood]

• Operating System:
  • macOS 11.3.1
  • Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS
• Node.js version:
  • 16.1.0
  • 16.0.0
  • 14.16.1
• fs-extra version:
  • 10.0.0

Starting with fs-extra 10.0.0 on node 14.14+, failures to rm a file that exists, but is in an unwritable directory, fail silently. fs-extra 9.1.0 throws an error, and fs-extra on node 12 throw an error.

Note that fs.rm in node 14.14+ is documented to fail silently only if the force parameter is true and the file to delete does not exist.

[RyanZim]

How does fs.rm with force and/or recursive options set to true work? I'm wondering if this is a bug in Node itself.

[rhwood]

I don't know. I may be doing something wrong.

On macOS 11.3.1 with Node.js 16.1.0,
this throws an error as expected:

import * as nodefs from 'fs'

nodefs.mkdirSync('tmp')
nodefs.writeFileSync('tmp/file', 'A file.')
nodefs.chmodSync('tmp', '500')
nodefs.rm('tmp/file', {force: true}, function(err) {
    console.log('Expected error message')
    if (err) {
        console.error(err)
    } else {
        console.log('Unexpected success')
    } 
})

but this does not (note same as above except after // clean up comment:

import * as nodefs from 'fs'

nodefs.mkdirSync('tmp')
nodefs.writeFileSync('tmp/file', 'A file.')
nodefs.chmodSync('tmp', '500')
nodefs.rm('tmp/file', {force: true}, function(err) {
    console.log('Expected error message')
    if (err) {
        console.error(err)
    } else {
        console.log('Unexpected success')
    } 
})
// clean up
nodefs.chmodSync('tmp', '700')
nodefs.rm('tmp', {recursive: true, force: true}, function(err) {
    if (err) {
        console.log('Unexpected error cleaning up')
        console.error(err)
    }
})

[RyanZim]

but this does not

For clarity, what's the result of that code?

[rhwood]

but this does not

For clarity, what's the result of that code?

Cleaning up...
Expected error message
Unexpected success

which means (I just realized) the rm is an asynchronous call.

[rhwood]

I just submitted nodejs/node#38683 as Node does have this bug also.

[RyanZim]

Closing as wontfix, since this is an upstream bug in Node. Node just merged a fix for this: nodejs/node#38684; from what I can tell, we should expect that fix to land in Node v17.