Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!haven!uvaarpa!virginia!uvacs!rwl
From: rwl@uvacs.cs.Virginia.EDU (Ray Lubinsky)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: cleaning a directory
Message-ID: <3042@uvacs.cs.Virginia.EDU>
Date: 25 Mar 89 17:04:01 GMT
References: <4218@omepd.UUCP>
Organization: U.Va. CS in Charlottesville VA
Lines: 23

In article <4218@omepd.UUCP>, merlyn@intelob.intel.com (Randal L. Schwartz @ Stonehenge) writes:
>    $deadmeat=`pwd`
>    cd /
>    rm -rf $deadmeat
>    mkdir $deadmeat
>    chmod $someprotection $deadmeat
> 
> No big deal.  No passing of arguments to rm, and no need to worry
> about .* files and files containing spaces and returns (yup, it's
> pathological, but I worry sometimes...).

Another advantage to your method is that sometimes directory files get quite
large if they have had a large number of filenames within them.  Removing and
recreating the directory itself will let you pare down the directory file to
the smallest size possible.

x

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