cannot remove* Is a directory

rm and rmdir are separate commands because of some accident in the way
Unix evolved. I think in some discussion about early days Ritchie says
something about directories once being fixed entities. Anyway, once rm
gained a -r option it subsumed rmdir's powers.

Scott Wunsch wrote:
> On Wed, 10-Sep-2003 at 07:10:49 -0700, Graham Bendell wrote:
>
>
>>i always use rm-rf dirname
>>
>>it wont ask you for confirmation, and it will delete the dir, and sub
>>dirs there in and files without a second thought.
>
>
> And if you're not careful, it'll remove your foot too ;-).

Someday you will want to remove a subtree, and will happily be typing
away rm -rf dir1/dir2/*, and while you're listening to the music of the
laser printer your thumb will slip giving you rm -rf dir1/dir2 /*,
and you will learn just how efficient the new-generation filesystems are....

I keep rm aliased with a -i, so I have to do \rm -rf ./dirname if that's
what I really want. Small precaution against big regret.
Received on Wed Sep 10 10:02:02 2003