Mata: confusing error message

[Salah Mahmud]

when you type:
. mata: rmdir ("vendor")

you get:
could not create directory vendor
rmdir(): 693 could not remove directory
<istmt>: - function returned error

The error seems to be an extra errprintf in rmdir.mata


*! version 1.0.0 15dec2004
version 9.0

mata:

void rmdir(string scalar dirpath)
{
if (_rmdir(dirpath)) {
errprintf("could not create directory %s\n", dirpath)
_error(693, "could not remove directory")
/*NOTREACHED*/
}
}

end

[Sergio Correia]

That seems like a bug, try contacting technical support: [email protected]

[Matthew J. Baker]

Salah Mahmud and Sergio Correia :

I'm not sure it's a bug. When I do:

clear all
mata:
    mkdir("foo")
    rmdir("foo")
end

There are no errors. However, when I do the following:

mata:
    mkdir("foo")
    chdir("foo")
    U = runiform(10,10) 
    mata matsave U U
    rmdir("foo")
end

I find that the rmdir("foo") command throws the same error as described by Salah Mahmud. You will notice that in the second example I am trying to remove a nonempty directory, which is what causes the error. The help file says that rmdir() can only be used to remove empty directories! Is that possibly the problem?

Hope that helps!

Matthew J. Baker

[Salah Mahmud]

@Matthew J. Baker
the bug is that the error says could not create directory. naturally, you will see the misleading error message only if _rmdir fails.