How to delete a file from within a vimscript?

Question

I'm trying to automate cleaning up old vim undo files that are for files that have since been deleted.

So far I've created a new vim script at ~/.vim/autoload/cleanupUndos.vim:

function cleanupUndos#clean()
    let undofiles = systemlist('ls /Users/me/.vim/undodir/')

    for undofile in undofiles
        let filepath = substitute(undofile, "%", "/", "g")
        if empty(glob(filepath))
            echo "File doesn't exist, deleting undofile for " filepath
            let deleteresult = delete(undofile)
            echo deleteresult == 0 ? 'SUCCEEDED' : 'FAILED'
        endif
    endfor
endfunction

And in my ~/.vimrc I've set the undofile and undodir and added the autocmd for running the cleanup:

set undofile
set undodir=/Users/me/.vim/undodir
autocmd VimEnter * :call cleanupUndos#clean()

The problem is that when I open vim, it immediately prints FAILED and none of the files ever get deleted. I can run the delete(filename) command in a vim session and it works, but it doesn't seem to work when run from the script. I've tried different ways of deleting files with no success.

How can I delete files from within a vimscript?

(I'm running Vim version 7.4.8056 on MacOS Sierra 10.12.6.)

Answer 1

You will need to escape file name since it contains "/". Try using

delete(fnameescape(filepath))

Check :help fnameescape for more information.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

I recommend tpope's vim-eunuch for executing all these kinds of UNIX shell commands, which includes Delete, Move, Rename, Chmod, to just name a few of them. To install it, visit this page