Delete one known scratch file.

C++: filesystem::remove reports whether an item was removed and also supports empty directories.

C++ snippet.cpp
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <string_view>
#include <vector>
#include <array>
#include <algorithm>
#include <numeric>
#include <map>
#include <unordered_map>
#include <set>
#include <queue>
#include <stack>
#include <deque>
#include <tuple>
#include <bitset>
#include <memory>
#include <optional>
#include <variant>
#include <functional>
#include <charconv>
#include <regex>
#include <fstream>
#include <sstream>
#include <filesystem>
#include <iomanip>
#include <cmath>
#include <cctype>
#include <limits>
#include <chrono>
#include <thread>
#include <future>
#include <mutex>
#include <atomic>
#include <condition_variable>

int main() {
    std::cout << std::boolalpha;
    std::cout << std::filesystem::remove("scratch.txt") << "\n";
    std::cout << std::filesystem::exists("scratch.txt") << "\n";
}

Expected output EXAMPLE

true
false

Details

Save as snippet.cpp; compile with g++ -std=c++17 -Wall -Wextra snippet.cpp -pthread -o snippet, then run ./snippet. filesystem::remove reports whether an item was removed and also supports empty directories.

✓ Verified

Tested on Ubuntu 24.04.5 LTS · · g++ (Ubuntu 13.3.0-6ubuntu2~24.04.1) 13.3.0 · g++ 4:13.2.0-7ubuntu1

Test inputs, results and environment

The exact published code ran in a dedicated Linux test container with prepared inputs. Unprivileged snippet process, external networking disabled, read-only root filesystem, and a fresh temporary working directory. Fixtures and output records are isolated from the application database. Testing covers this example and its stated checks, not every input, operating system, or runtime version. The Linux container shares its host's kernel; this is not a native Windows test.

Architecture / host kernel
x86_64 / 6.18.54.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2
Snippet identity / locale
uid=65534, gid=65534 (unprivileged) / C.UTF-8
Interpreter invocation
g++ -std=c++17 -Wall -Wextra -Werror snippet.cpp -pthread -lm -o snippet && ./snippet
Container image ID
sha256:32dc2d998158b6554c99b73b533f423696a0f3e31e8cbea9db10b5eee9a2fadd
Code SHA-256
c23583ab97df100322c13138ddba1dde85454a4989add492e7d948a7033f30fe
Dependencies
g++ 4:13.2.0-7ubuntu1

Test input setup

These are the prepared inputs used by the test harness. See Details above for the prerequisites and how to run this example.

touch scratch.txt

Observed standard output

true
false

Exit code: 0. Standard error: empty. Validation: Exact stdout comparison. System-dependent values above are one recorded run.