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From: bak@csd_v.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng,comp.unix.xenix,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Request for human interface design anecdotes
Message-ID: <132@csd_v.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Nov-87 21:26:22 EST
Article-I.D.: csd_v.132
Posted: Tue Nov 17 21:26:22 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Nov-87 07:23:19 EST
References: <1721@spar.SPAR.SLB.COM> <1621@megatest.UUCP> <101@ateng.UUCP> <763@rocky.STANFORD.EDU>
Organization: Computer Systems Design -- Sandy Hook, Ct.
Lines: 29
Xref: utgpu comp.cog-eng:292 comp.unix.xenix:1017 comp.unix.wizards:5125
Summary: rm with undelete capability

In article <763@rocky.STANFORD.EDU>, andy@rocky.STANFORD.EDU (Andy Freeman) writes:
> There are far more general solutions.  Most people have trash cans.
> One can recover their contents for some time, but they go away at
> well defined times....

I use a version of rm adapted from Wizard's Grabbag in UNIX/XENIX world.
It simply prepends '#' to the file name if no swithces are listed in 
the command line.  Thus

		$ rm foo      

creates a file #foo, while

		$ rm -[i|f|r] foo

all work normally.  Since # is the shell comment charater it is very
hard to unintentionally delete files with names beginning with it.

My crontab contains the line

10 3 * * 0,2,4,6 find / \( -name '#*' -o -name 'tmp.*' -o -name '*.tmp' -o -name 'temp.*' -o  -name '*.temp' \) -mtime +3 -exec rm -f {} \;

which deletes files beginning with '#' which have been unmodified for 3 days.

If disk space is a problem you can cut down the -mtime value.  This script 
has saved me grief on more than one occasion.
-- 
Bruce Kern -- Computer Systems Design, 29 High Rock Rd., Sandy Hook, Ct. 06482
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