处理异常的最佳解决方案是，方法抛出的异常应该总是描述该方法试图(和失败)做什么:

private void deleteRecursive(File f) throws Exception {
    try {
        if (f.isDirectory()) {
            for (File c : f.listFiles()) {
                deleteRecursive(c);
            }
        }
        if (!f.delete()) {
            throw new Exception("Delete command returned false for file: " + f);
        }
    } 
    catch (Exception e) {
        throw new Exception("Failed to delete the folder: " + f, e);
    }
}

虽然可以使用file.delete()轻松删除文件，但要删除的目录必须为空。使用递归可以很容易地做到这一点。例如:

public static void clearFolders(String[] args) {
        for(String st : args){
            File folder = new File(st);
            if (folder.isDirectory()) {
                File[] files = folder.listFiles();
                if(files!=null) { 
                    for(File f: files) {
                        if (f.isDirectory()){
                            clearFolders(new String[]{f.getAbsolutePath()});
                            f.delete();
                        } else {
                            f.delete();
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }

也许这个问题的解决方案是使用erickson回答中的代码重新实现File类的delete方法:

public class MyFile extends File {

  ... <- copy constructor

  public boolean delete() {
    if (f.isDirectory()) {
      for (File c : f.listFiles()) {
        return new MyFile(c).delete();
      }
    } else {
        return f.delete();
    }
  }
}

在Java 7中，我们终于可以通过可靠的符号链接检测来做到这一点。(我不认为Apache的commons-io现在有可靠的符号链接检测，因为它不处理Windows上用mklink创建的链接。)

出于历史原因，这里有一个java 7之前的答案，它遵循符号链接。

void delete(File f) throws IOException {
  if (f.isDirectory()) {
    for (File c : f.listFiles())
      delete(c);
  }
  if (!f.delete())
    throw new FileNotFoundException("Failed to delete file: " + f);
}

Java 7通过符号链接处理增加了对遍历目录的支持:

import java.nio.file.*;

public static void removeRecursive(Path path) throws IOException
{
    Files.walkFileTree(path, new SimpleFileVisitor<Path>()
    {
        @Override
        public FileVisitResult visitFile(Path file, BasicFileAttributes attrs)
                throws IOException
        {
            Files.delete(file);
            return FileVisitResult.CONTINUE;
        }

        @Override
        public FileVisitResult visitFileFailed(Path file, IOException exc) throws IOException
        {
            // try to delete the file anyway, even if its attributes
            // could not be read, since delete-only access is
            // theoretically possible
            Files.delete(file);
            return FileVisitResult.CONTINUE;
        }

        @Override
        public FileVisitResult postVisitDirectory(Path dir, IOException exc) throws IOException
        {
            if (exc == null)
            {
                Files.delete(dir);
                return FileVisitResult.CONTINUE;
            }
            else
            {
                // directory iteration failed; propagate exception
                throw exc;
            }
        }
    });
}

我使用它作为特定于平台的方法(在这个未测试的代码中):

public static void removeDirectory(Path directory) throws IOException
{
    // does nothing if non-existent
    if (Files.exists(directory))
    {
        try
        {
            // prefer OS-dependent directory removal tool
            if (SystemUtils.IS_OS_WINDOWS)
                Processes.execute("%ComSpec%", "/C", "RD /S /Q \"" + directory + '"');
            else if (SystemUtils.IS_OS_UNIX)
                Processes.execute("/bin/rm", "-rf", directory.toString());
        }
        catch (ProcessExecutionException | InterruptedException e)
        {
            // fallback to internal implementation on error
        }

        if (Files.exists(directory))
            removeRecursive(directory);
    }
}

SystemUtils来自Apache Commons Lang。Processes是私有的，但是它的行为应该是明显的。)

public void deleteRecursive(File path){
    File[] c = path.listFiles();
    System.out.println("Cleaning out folder:" + path.toString());
    for (File file : c){
        if (file.isDirectory()){
            System.out.println("Deleting file:" + file.toString());
            deleteRecursive(file);
            file.delete();
        } else {
            file.delete();
        }
    }
    path.delete();
}