Aucbvax.4034
fa.unix-wizards
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!unix-wizards
Thu Sep 24 23:06:05 1981
Re: rm and shell metacharacters
>From MathStat.jmrubin@Berkeley Thu Sep 24 14:03:34 1981
	Two ways of making rm safer:
		(1) Let it become default interactive if some environmental
variable is set to a non-null value.  Preferably, there should be a flag
to just get back to normal, and -f should turn interaction off.

		(2) Move /ab/cde/file to /ab/cde/#file in lieu of re-
moving it.  Then, there has to be either a recursive cleanout of such
files at logout, (from the home directory down) or a periodic garbage
collector daemon.  This system is similar to the TOPS-20 and it comes
from the Rand mhmail system.  The Rand mhmail programs don't
take care of rm'ing # files, but, in practice, this doesn't matter too
much for the mail system, because the files that get #'s are either called
draft or have a numerical name, so such files don't usually proliferate.
It would matter if it were done in general; I'm not sure what Rand does
to prevent backup proliferation.

			Joel Rubin