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From: chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix,comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Ugly file name
Keywords: rm cat mv regexp
Message-ID: <17502@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 13 May 89 18:56:54 GMT
References: <128@tdl.UUCP> <7170@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> <2214@Portia.Stanford.EDU>
Distribution: usa
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 17

In article <2214@Portia.Stanford.EDU> joe@hanauma.stanford.edu (Joe Dellinger) writes:
>Even "rm -i *" used to be dangerous. There is the famous case where
>somebody accidentally created a file name "-f", and decided to remove
>it by doing "rm -i *". The csh dutifully expanded this to
>"rm -i -f [files...]", and at that time "-f" overrode "-i" in rm.
>Result: everything in the directory deleted EXCEPT the file "-f"!

Thus, to be safe against old versions of `rm', use

	rm -i ./*

or, in this case more simply,

	rm ./-f
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris