How to run code after hook_node_delete has completely run?

Question

I have a node to which I have a number of images attached through the usual content type image field mechanism. The attachment is done correctly, such that when I delete the node, the images are also deleted.

My problem is that these images are held in a subdirectory, which is not deleted by the file deletion process, and I end up with a bunch of empty and useless directories littering my file system. I tried deleting the directory with hook_node_delete(), but this fails because Drupal hasn't yet gotten around to deleting the images when that hook gets called, and the rmdir() function I was using to delete the directory fails because the directory isn't empty.

So: Is there a hook I can call that will run after the files have been deleted? I suppose I could write my own code in hook_node_delete() to delete the files and then the directory, but I'd rather not hack around the architecture like that, if possible.

Answer 1

You may want to look into hook_field_attach_delete(). This runs after all fields have been removed from a node/entity. So, if all the file fields (and the actual files) have been removed, and all of them in such a node are all in one directory and they are the only files in that directory, removing that directory in this hook should succeed.

Answer 2

You could try instead using

hook_file_delete

Respond to a file being deleted. - $file: The file that has just been deleted.

e.g:

/**
 * Implements hook_file_delete
 */
function MYMODULE_file_delete($file) {
  // Attempt to delete empty file directory, on error resume next
  @drupal_rmdir(dirname(drupal_realpath($file->uri)));
}

Might not need drupal_realpath, but that should work.