At 8:13 AM -0600 11/16/07, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote: >Tony Nelson wrote: >> At 1:22 PM -0600 11/15/07, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote: >> ... >>> ...Did you know that >>> to remove a directory, you should use rmdir, and not rm? There is >>> also "rm -d <directory>", but that is limited to root, and should be >>> used with care. >> >> What is the benefit of using rmdir rather than rm -rf, other than having to >> empty the directory first? (I use two steps, ll dir followed by editing >> the command to be rm -rf.) >> >Safety - you are less likely to remove things you did not mean to. >Just as your test makes sure you are deleting only what you want, >using rmdir makes sure you are removing an empty directory. OK. The directories I remove normally have files in them, so it doesn't really apply to my use. >> I don't see any -d option to rm in man rm, info rm, or rm --help (all tests >> done as root!). >>From "man rm" on FC6 (It looks like the later versions do not have it.): > >-d, --directory > unlink FILE, even if it is a non-empty directory (super-user > only; this works only if your system supports 'unlink' for > nonempty directories) OK, it's just not in the F7 docs. -- ____________________________________________________________________ TonyN.:' <mailto:tonynelson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> ' <http://www.georgeanelson.com/>
