rm command

[Eric Hattemer]

rm -r means recursively, deleting files and directories
rm -R means recursively, deleting everything, including buffers and special
files.
at school our rm is aliased to rm -i so if I want to kill everything then I
type
/bin/rm -Rf ~/junk
But yes, since ext2 has no recycling bin or undelete capabilities, unless
you back everything up, be careful.  I'm not, and it's never really hurt me,
but it could.  I'm the type who deletes a lot of stuff carelessly and always
does shift-delete in windows, and so far has gotten away with it.  But I'm
lucky :).
-Eric Hattemer
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nelson Garcia" <garcian002 at hawaii.rr.com>
To: "Linux & Unix Advocates & Users" <luau at list.luau.hi.net>
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2001 10:11 AM
Subject: [luau] Re: rm command


> Isn't it capital "R"?
>
> Anyway, excellent point about being careful.  Just learn from my
mistake...
>
> A while back I was testing a webmail application called "vamp" and decided
> that I wanted to delete it. The directory and subdirectories had very long
> names such as vamp-1.2.3-xxx, you get the idea.  So I got lazy and used
wild
> cards.
>
> Let's just say that "rm -Rf /va*"   is NOT the same as "rm -Rf va*",  you
> can guess what happened...
>
> What I do now is type "rm -R <path>"  and let it prompt me a few times
until
> I am satisfied that is traversing the correct path, then I CTL-C and
repeat
> the command with the "f" parameter.  Too paranoid, I know.  You could also
> type slower.
>
> Nelson.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Robert Buecker" <rbuecker at darkscape.net>
> To: "Linux & Unix Advocates & Users" <luau at maile.hi.net>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2001 01:40 AM
> Subject: [luau] Re: rm command
>
>
> rm -rf /path/to/directory/you/want/deleted
>
> make sure you aren't in the directory or any sub directory or else it
won't
> be removed
>
> and of course, be careful :>
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Julio
>   To: Linux & Unix Advocates & Users
>   Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2001 1:36 AM
>   Subject: [luau] rm command
>
>
>   how can I remove all the files and subdirectories in a directory without
> being prompted everytime and without getting the message directory not
empty
> under linux, I have tried all the options listed under rmdir--help but
can't
> do it.
>
>   thanks in advance
>
>   Julio
>   If you can't beat your computer at chess, try kickboxing!
>   ---
>
>
>
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