It seems to me that os.removedirs() and os.renames() was added just for
symmetry with os.makedirs(). All three functions have similar structure
and was added in the same commit. Seems they were initially code
examples of using some os.path and os functions.
Unlike to quite popular os.makedirs(), os.removedirs() and os.renames()
are not used in the stdlib and rarely used in third party code.
os.removedirs() is considered as an opposite to os.makedirs(), and
os.renames() is a combination of os.makedirs(), os.rename() and
os.removedirs(). The problems with them are:
1. They do not remove directory if any file or other subdirectory is
left. They just stop removing and return success. ZTo the user it looks
like they do not work as expected, but he need to test the existence of
directory explicitly to check this.
2. They can remove more than expected. If the parent directory was empty
before calling os.makedirs(), the following os.removedirs() will remove
not just the newly created directories, but the parent directory, and
its parent if it contained a single directory, and so on.
os.removedirs() is not an opposite to os.makedirs(). It can remove less
or more, and you have no control on how much it will remove. It is
better to use shutil.rmtree().
os.renames() correspondingly can be replaced by os.rename() or
shutil.move(), with possible addition of os.makedirs() and
shutil.rmtree() if needed.
I propose to deprecate these functions and remove them in future Python
versions.
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