Recursively deletes a directory and all its contents, like "rmdir -Rf" on the command line

rmdir_r.c

/*
 * Recursively deletes a directory, like "rm -Rf" on the command-line.
 *
 * Returns 0 on success. On error, returns -1 and sets errno.
 */
int rmdir_r(const char *dirname)
{
    struct dirent **namelist;
    int n = scandir(dirname, &namelist, 0, alphasort);

    if (n < 0) {
	return -1;
    } else {
	for (int i = 0; i < n; ++i) {	

	    // skip special entries
	    if (strcmp(namelist[i]->d_name, ".") == 0 ||
		strcmp(namelist[i]->d_name, "..") == 0) {
		continue;
	    }

	    // get a path to this file, relative to the current working directory
	    char *filename;
	    asprintf(&filename, "%s/%s", dirname, namelist[i]->d_name);


	    // what sort of file is this anyways?
	    struct stat st;
	    if (lstat(filename, &st)) {
		return -1;
	    }


	    if (S_ISDIR(st.st_mode)) {
		// recursively delete directories
		if (rmdir_r(filename)) {
		    return -1;
		}
	    } else {
		// unlink files
		if (unlink(filename)) {
		    return -1;
		}
	    }
	    
	    // clean up our messes
	    free(filename);
	}

	// the directory should now be empty, so delete it
	if (rmdir(dirname)) {
	    return -1;
	}

	return 0;
    }
}