[15955] in Athena Bugs
saferm
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Karl Ramm)
Thu May 28 15:13:56 1998
To: bugs@MIT.EDU
From: Karl Ramm <kcr@MIT.EDU>
Date: 28 May 1998 15:13:52 -0400
What were you trying to do?
Use 'saferm' in a cleanup script, coincidentally attempting to
remove directories.
What's wrong:
Saferm removed directories by merely unlinking them, whether or not
there's anything in them. This produces directory trees not
connected to the rest of the filesystem.
What should have happened:
saferm should've done one of the follwing
a. removed everything in the directory (bad)
b. refused to deal with directories with files other than . and ..
in them, and removed . and .. before unlinking the "empty"
directories. (better)
c. refused to remove directories, mimicing the behavior of rm. (best)
