rm -r fails on some systems

[Michael van Elst]

Dear Bug-Searches,

the rm tool in GNU core utils 4.5.4 may fail to recursively remove directories
on systems that support DIRENT_D_TYPE.

On such systems the d_type may be set to DT_UNKNOWN for filesystems that
do not support directory entry types and which require an explicit call
to lstat(). In particular this happens on FreeBSD for NFS mounted volumes.

In this case rm fails to see subdirectories it should traverse and tries
to unlink() them.

The following patch fixes the problem:

--- src/remove.c.dist   2003-01-17 15:33:54.000000000 +0100
+++ src/remove.c        2003-01-17 15:37:08.000000000 +0100
@@ -632,9 +632,11 @@
 
 #if HAVE_STRUCT_DIRENT_D_TYPE
 # define DT_IS_DIR(D) ((D)->d_type == DT_DIR)
+# define DT_IS_DEF(D) ((D)->d_type != DT_UNKNOWN)
 #else
 /* Use this only if the member exists -- i.e., don't return 0.  */
 # define DT_IS_DIR(D) do_not_use_this_macro
+# define DT_IS_DEF(D) do_not_use_this_macro
 #endif
 
 #define DO_UNLINK(Filename, X)                                         \
@@ -704,7 +706,7 @@
   if (is_dir == T_UNKNOWN)
     {
 # if HAVE_STRUCT_DIRENT_D_TYPE
-      if (dp)
+      if (dp && DT_IS_DEF (dp))
        is_dir = DT_IS_DIR (dp) ? T_YES : T_NO;
       else
 # endif

Greetings,
-- 
                                       Michael van Elst
                                       address@hidden