Re: Why mv have no '-R'

Janis Papanagnou <Janis_Papanagnou@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

If the directory entry 'file2' is the only "pointer" to the file (i.e.
no additional "hard links" set and no process accessing the file) then
the file file2 *will* be removed.


Yes.

To be precise, (and perhaps more information that you really need to
know) the *contents* of the file will remain. However, the system will
also have marked those disk blocks as "available for use" and another
program may grab them and fill up the blocks with new data.

But that's going into the internals of the disk structure, and most
operating systems behave the same way. Some disk recovery tools can
recover data that have been "deleted" this way.

If you ever get rid of a computer or disk drive, simply "deleting" the
files doesn't really wipe the data. That's why some people use disk
wipe programs that write over the entire disk with 1's and 0's.

I hear about people who buy used computers off eBay and discover all
sorts of credit card numbers, etc. on the disks. Then again sometimes
you don't even need a disk recovery program - the files were never
deleted.


.

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