Re: rm(1) bug, possibly serious
- From: Ian Smith <smithi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2007 01:53:06 +1000 (EST)
On Tue, 25 Sep 2007, LI Xin wrote:
Oliver Fromme wrote:
Nicolas Rachinsky wrote:
> Oliver Fromme wrote:
> > By the way, an additional confusion is that ".." and "../"
> > are handled differently. Specifying ".." always leads to
> > this message:
> >
> > rm: "." and ".." may not be removed
> >
> > and nothing is actually removed. It is confusing that
> > adding a slash leads to a different error message _and_
> > removal of the contents of the parent directory. Clearly
> > a POLA violation.
Clearly a bug, and well spotted, especially if as old as reported.
>
> Adding a slash often leads to different behaviour.
Yes, I'm aware of that. I often make use of the feature
that "find /sys/" expands the symlink, while "find /sys"
does not. The same holds true for ls(1).
But fortunately not for rm(1):
The rm utility removes symbolic links, not the files referenced by the
links.
It is an error to attempt to remove the files /, . or ..
However, I would still argue that there is no sane reason
for "rm -rf ../" behaving differently from "rm -rf ..",
especially because it behaves differently in a destructive
way. That's why I call it a POLA violation.
Also a POSIX violation IMHO :-)
Indeed; I can't imagine a situation where removing "." (let alone "..")
and so orphaning the pwd might be considered sane, never mind legal ..
but maybe I lack imagination :)
Cheers, Ian
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