11 Jun
1998
11 Jun
'98
3:47 p.m.
On Jun 11, 13:43, Doug Yowza wrote:
On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, Pete Turnbull wrote:
> Quickest general method is "rm -i *",
though you may sometimes need
> "rm -i .*" instead/as well.
It doesn't matter for "rm" since it won't delete directories unless you
add
"-r" but for some other commands , "xx .?*" may be preferable to
"xx .*".
If you had a file named "-f" in your
directory, then "rm -i *" would
happily delete all of the files in the directory without prompting you.
"rm -i ./*" would be better, but would not work for files with control
characters or spaces.
It does on SystemV-based systems, and others I've tried. And "rm -i *"
prompts even with "-f".
If you wanted to stick with the "-i"
approach, then "cd .. ; rm -r -i
dir"
would be the best bet (assuming your rm had a -r
option to recurse).
AFAIK, all rm's have -r.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York