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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!allegra!mp
From: mp@allegra.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: is it ok to forbid rm -r x/y/..
Message-ID: <6427@allegra.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 17-Jan-87 13:43:28 EST
Article-I.D.: allegra.6427
Posted: Sat Jan 17 13:43:28 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Jan-87 23:39:29 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 12

After seeing several people remove their entire hierarchies
with something like ``rm -r /usr/lg/backup/.*'' , I'm tempted to
make rm forbid removing anything that has .. as its last
pathname component (currently, it checks only for pathnames
that are either . or ..).  But I'm wondering why it hasn't
been changed to do this already.  What am I overlooking?

BTW, under 4.3bsd the attempt to recursively remove .. in the
aforementioned manner may cause rm to get a bus error.  On line 167,
add an "if (dirp)" before "closedir(dirp)".
	Mark Plotnick
	allegra!mp