Deleting Files

There are two methods you can use to delete files:

• deleteFileEntry(long fileEntryId)

• deleteFileEntryByTitle(long repositoryId, long folderId, String title)

These methods differ only in how they identify a file for deletion. The combination of the folderId and title parameters in deleteFileEntryByTitle uniquely identify a file because it’s impossible for two files in the same folder to share a name.

Follow these steps to delete a file:

1. Get a reference to DLAppService:

   @Reference
   private DLAppService _dlAppService;
   

   For more information on this, see the section on getting a service reference in the getting started tutorial.

2. Get the data needed to populate the arguments of the deleteFileEntry* method you wish to use. Since it’s common to delete a file specified by the end user, you can extract the data you need from the request. This example does so via javax.portlet.ActionRequest and ParamUtil, but you can get the data any way you wish. Also note that this example gets only the file entry ID because it uses deleteFileEntry:

   long fileEntryId = ParamUtil.getLong(actionRequest, "fileEntryId");
   

   If you want to use deleteFileEntryByTitle instead, you can also get the repository ID, folder ID, and title from the request. For more information on getting repository and folder IDs, see the getting started tutorial’s sections on specifying repositories and folders.

3. Call the service reference’s deleteFileEntry* method you wish to use with the data from the previous step. This example calls deleteFileEntry with the file entry’s ID:

   _dlAppService.deleteFileEntry(fileEntryId);
   

You can find the full code for this example in the deleteFileEntry method of Liferay DXP’s EditFileEntryMVCActionCommand class. This class uses the Documents and Media API to implement almost all the FileEntry actions that the Documents and Media app supports. Also note that this deleteFileEntry method, as well as the rest of EditFileEntryMVCActionCommand, contains additional logic to suit the specific needs of the Documents and Media app.

Related Topics

Moving Entities to the Recycle Bin

Creating Files

Updating Files

Moving Folders and Files