Rm
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(How to alias a command (other than rm) to moving files to a "trash can") |
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| − | Short for '''remove'''. Seriously, be careful when using this. There is no undelete once you've unlinked a file | + | Short for '''remove'''. Seriously, be careful when using this. There is no undelete once you've unlinked a file unless you've aliased [[rm]] to a [[mv]] script that moves files to a trash folder. This practice is not recommended because you will eventually find yourself on a system that doesn't have that alias and make a mistake. However, you can alias a different command to do this task by putting something like this in your startup file: |
| + | |||
| + | alias del "mv */! .trash" | ||
==Common flags== | ==Common flags== | ||
Revision as of 23:50, 16 August 2005
Short for remove. Seriously, be careful when using this. There is no undelete once you've unlinked a file unless you've aliased rm to a mv script that moves files to a trash folder. This practice is not recommended because you will eventually find yourself on a system that doesn't have that alias and make a mistake. However, you can alias a different command to do this task by putting something like this in your startup file:
alias del "mv */! .trash"
Common flags
-r recursive -- same as -R -f force -- do it and damn the consequences -d directories -i confirm before delete -P overwrite files (with 0xFF's, 0x00's, and 0xFF's again) before deleting them -v be verbose
About the -P argument
Use this argument with extreme care! If you use rm -P to remove a file that has hard links, the file will be immediately overwritten and its contents will be lost, thus not accessible via the links. For example :
$ echo 'Hello World' > foo $ ln -h foo bar $ cat foo bar Hello World Hello World $ rm -P foo $ cat bar $ Hey !! where is bar contents ?? Hey, command not found
See also rmdir
