collectstatic --clear doesn't delete broken symlinks from the STATIC_ROOT

[Evan Heidtmann]

In my STATIC_ROOT, I have a directory containing some broken symlinks.

I run ./manage.py collectstatic -l -c

I see "Deleting '...'" for each of the broken symlinks, and no corresponding "Linking '...'" lines. I would expect the broken symlinks to be gone. But they still exist.

Steps to reproduce:

ln -s asdfasd_something_that_doesnt_exist_fasdfasdf $STATIC_ROOT/broken_symlink
ls -l $STATIC_ROOT/broken_symlink
./manage.py collectstatic -l -c --noinput | grep broken_symlink
ls -l $STATIC_ROOT/broken_symlink

How could the broken symlinks get there in the first place? Answer: I'm using collectstatic -l and I deleted the original static files from my app, so the symlinks made last time still exist.

(Why do I care? Answer: this causes real trouble when used with WhiteNoise, because it can't find the original file and fails to start)