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"rm -rf" incomplete


From: Ulrich Windl
Subject: "rm -rf" incomplete
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 12:20:00 +0100

Hello,

realizing that "rm -rf" fails for directories that were "chmod a-w", is 
propose an extension for rm to do what a user could do when deleting. 
That is, if the directory is write-protected, but the user own it, 
chmod u+w and then delete it. A new option like "-y" (be repeatedly 
affirmative) could be used.

The only problem is if the unlink fails at some point (for various 
reasons): Should the chmod to the directory be undone? Should "." be 
affected? For the latter I think "no", because it possibly will cause a 
surprise to the user when doing "rm -rfy dir".

Of course this needs some more thoughts, but having to "chmod -R u+w 
dir" first seems to be against the idea of "-f".

Regards,
Ulrich




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