OT: the rm bug hit me again

[Nigel Wade]

Mike McCarty wrote:
> Arthur Pemberton wrote:
>> On 10/25/06, Robin Laing <Robin.Laing at drdc-rddc.gc.ca> wrote:
>>
>>> Graphical file manager?  That isn't the *nix way of doing things.  :)
>>>
>>> And the -f in the rm command it to stop the "Confirm delete?" questions.
>>>    My rm is set to confirm all deletes using alias.
>>>
>>> -- 
>>
>>
>> How exactly did you do this? I got bit by this bug once in my Linux
>> life, would prefer it never happens again.
>>
> 
> alias rm='rm -i'
> 

That's not a good idea as it teaches you to expect to be prompted, and you'll be 
bitten badly some time when the alias isn't present.

Better to alias it to some command which doesn't exist, like del, and train 
yourself to use del. If the alias isn't present all you get is 'del: command not 
found' rather than a depleted filesystem.

-- 
Nigel Wade, System Administrator, Space Plasma Physics Group,
             University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK
E-mail :    nmw at ion.le.ac.uk
Phone :     +44 (0)116 2523548, Fax : +44 (0)116 2523555