FUNCTION DeleteEmptyFolders ( TargetPath )
   ' released 2021-01-02
   ' delete ALL empty folders, including nested ones, under a user defined starting point.
   ' example of useage:
   '     DeleteEmptyFolders ( "c:\users\public\\")

   ' we use database functionality, if a DB is not open then open one
   ' we will tidy-up at the end
   dim closeDBatEnd = 0

   IF ( ! dbOpen ) then
      dbopen ("memory")
      closeDBatEnd = 1
   END IF
   
   ' we want to give the command   dbFileList   a proper path
   ' that means it is terminated by a   "\"

   IF ( right (TargetPath, 1) <>  "\\" ) then
      TargetPath = TargetPath & "\\"
   END If

   ' now create a table of ALL of the file system components under the TargetPath
   
   dbFileList ( "temp", "myFileSystemList" , TargetPath, -1 )
   
   ' use the FileSystemObject   DeleteFolder    method to do the actual deleting
   dim fso = createobject ("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

   report = "--------------------------------------------"
   
   ' if we want to remove "nested" empty folders we need a DO LOOP

   select count (*) from ( select ( path || name || '\' ) as path  from temp.myFileSystemList where type = 'folder'  )  where not path in ( select path from temp.myFileSystemList )
   DO  while  ( qrSingleValue )

      ' find the empty folders 
      > select * from ( select ( path || name || '\' ) as path , rowid as rid from temp.myFileSystemList where type = 'folder'  )  where not path in ( select path from temp.myFileSystemList )
      WITHQUERY ( freestring )

         report = wqtext(1)
		 
		 ' delete the empty folder
         runon  fso.deleteFolder ( right ( wqtext(1) , -1 ) )
		 
		 ' remove the empty folder from the DB table, so that we can expose the next level of nested empty folders
         >  delete from temp.myFileSystemList where rowid =
         freestring = freestring & wqint(2)
         sql = freestring

      END withQuery

      ' now see if we have exposed a nested empty folder
      select count (*)  from   ( select ( path || name || '\' ) as path  from temp.myFileSystemList where type = 'folder'  )  where not path in ( select path from temp.myFIleSystemList )
   LOOP
   
   ' tidy up the database
   IF ( closeDBatEnd ) then
      dbclose ()
   ELSE
      drop table if exists temp.myFileSystemList 
      vacuum
   END IF

END Function