Re: rm -r /usr/local by mistake

From: Chris Menzel (cmenzel_at_remove-this.tamu.edu)
Date: 06/14/05 

Date: 14 Jun 2005 03:59:58 GMT

On Tue, 14 Jun 2005 03:05:01 GMT, Bill Vermillion <bv@wjv.com> said:
> In article <slrndardh3.12st.cmenzel@philebus.tamu.edu>,
> Chris Menzel <cmenzel@remove-this.tamu.edu> wrote:
>>On Sun, 12 Jun 2005 21:52:16 -0400, Chris F.A. Johnson
>><cfajohnson@gmail.com> said:
>>> On 2005-06-12, Chris Menzel wrote:
>>>> On 12 Jun 2005 11:34:14 -0700, de08 <de08jze@lycos.de> said:
>>>>> I did a stupid mistake and deleted (of courdse rm -r )the folder
>>>>> /usr/local/ on 5.4-RELEASE FreeBSD.
>>>
>>>> You might might consider aliasing "rm" to "rm -i" so you get a warning
>>>> before you blow a dir away. You can always avoid the warning with "\rm -i"
>>>> if you're sure.
>>>
>>> I would suggest that that is more dangerous than anything. Relying
>>> on non-standard behaviour, which may not be in effect on another
>>> user's login, or on another machine, is asking for trouble.
>
>>I withdraw the suggestion. Arguably, rm's default behavior should have
>>been that of "rm -i"; but it's not, so point taken.
>
> I disagree on that. rm should not default to -i. You just have to
> remember the power of rm.

I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but I guess I don't see much
difference between remembering its power, given rm's current behavior,
and remembering a flag to get the same effect (were rm to default to
-i).

> When doing wild card removeable use an 'ls' with the arguments, and if
> it looks right, use command line editing to change it to rm.

That works too. :-)

-cm

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