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Re: Dangerous: delete-file deletes current directory as root!!
From: |
Stefan Monnier |
Subject: |
Re: Dangerous: delete-file deletes current directory as root!! |
Date: |
Fri, 11 Oct 2002 15:32:38 -0400 |
> In GNU Emacs 21.2.1 (sparc-sun-solaris2.8, X toolkit)
[...]
> I am not knowledgeable about this platform, but here Emacs has a
> serious and dangerous bug. When running as root (did not try as a
> normal user) if one does:
>
> M-x delete-file RET
>
> Emacs deletes the current directory!
Hmmm, the Single Unix Specification V2 says about unlink:
The path argument must not name a directory unless the process
has appropriate privileges and the implementation supports using
unlink() on directories.
Now, I'm not sure what `delete-file' should do. Should it mimic `unlink'
or should it first check that it is not called on a directory ?
Since the check would only be needed for `root' and since I don't
think that people should be running Emacs under root unless they really
mean it, I think the current code is fine.
Maybe we should pop up a warning message when Emacs is started
as root, reminding them that it can be dangerous ?
Stefan