Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!labrea!rutgers!att!alberta!edm!rroot
From: rroot@edm.UUCP (Stephen Samuel)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: computer follies
Message-ID: <3266@edm.UUCP>
Date: 14 Sep 88 04:42:19 GMT
References: <571@accelerator.eng.ohio-state.edu>
Organization: Unexsys Systems Inc., Edmonton,AB.
Lines: 26

One of the worst that I've done was a disk cleaning daemon.. Our system
was rather short of space so, to get whatever space I could out of our 
system, I edited the core file cleaner to eat core files over 24hrs old.
 
 Due to a typing error (and multiple concurrent edit sessions) one
connective was not removed and I ended up with the following (or something
similar):

  find / -name core -o -atime +1 -exec rm '{}' \; 
 
A couple of interesting points about this line: 
 1: core files were UNTOUCHED (the -o short-circuits the expression)
 2: it doesn't usually have immediately obvious effects (all absolutely
NECESSARY files had, of course been accessed in the last 24 hrs)

After this bomb went off (3pm the next day) it's effects weren't 
immediately noticable . My first clue was congratulations for fixing the 
disk squeeze.  I later noticed that SOME (but not all) the MAN entries were
missing.  The pattern pointed out where the problem was.

  The next few days, of course weren't too pleasing for me, as I tried to fix
the damage...
-- 
-------------
Stephen Samuel 	  (userzxcv@ualtamts.bitnet   or  alberta!edm!steve)
MS-DOS : CPM impersonating UNIX  **   OS/2 : IBM impersonating APPLE