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Re: mv directories to new partition; rm directories



Hi,
>>"Gary" == Gary L Dolan <dolan@inetnebr.com> writes:

Gary> On Sun, Aug 10, 1997 at 05:21:23PM -0400, Scott K. Ellis wrote:

Scott> You ABSOLUTLY NEVER want to use the -d option to rm.  That will
Scott> seriously corrupt your filesystem (it deletes the directory
Scott> inode without deleting the files in the directory).  The proper
Scott> way to remove a directory and its comments is 'rm -rf
Scott> <dirname>'

Gary> Thanks for the information. If this is really a *bad* idea, it
Gary> ought not to be in the info program as a viable option to rm
Gary> without some explanation.  Gary

	But there *is* information.
======================================================================

       -d, --directory
              Remove  directories  with   `unlink'   instead   of
              `rmdir',  and don't require a directory to be empty
              before trying to unlink it.   Only  works  for  the
              super-user.   Because  unlinking a directory causes
              any files in the deleted directory to become unref­
              erenced,  it  is  wise to *fsck* the filesystem after
              doing this.
======================================================================

	Didn't the requirement to File System CHeck ring any alarms?
 IMHO, they are warning you that you are lweaving behind unreferenced
 files, and would need to run fsck afterwards is warning enough.

======================================================================
       -f, --force
              Ignore nonexistent files and never prompt the user.
       -r, -R, --recursive
              Remove the contents of directories recursively.
======================================================================

	No warnings there that I can see. Or are you advocating that
 rm never delete recursively either, and always prompt the
 user? I have seen (and heard) far many more people do rm -rf junk *
 then do rm -d.

	manoj
 who does not want UNIX to become just another NT 5.0.
--
 Bye Bye PDP 10
Manoj Srivastava               <url:mailto:srivasta@acm.org>
Mobile, Alabama USA            <url:http://www.datasync.com/%7Esrivasta/>

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