On 04/15/2016 01:09 PM, Scott Allen wrote:
On 15 April 2016 at 12:47, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh@mimosa.com> wrote:
This isn't true of the rm(1) command. No operand means delete nothing. The following article gives more specifics: <http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/man-accidentally-deletes-his-entire-company-with-one-line-of-bad-code-a6984256.html>
The script actually contained rm -rf {foo}/{bar}
The error caused foo and bar to be null so the result was rm -rf /
The cyrus imap people came up with an elegant solution to people doing this kind of thing to their mail accounts. Expunging the contents of a mailbox will not actually remove the contents till some number of days later. There is something to be said for deletion to trash. I wonder if anybody has hacked the unlink systemcall to provide a safe delete. Something like moving the files to something like a lost_and_found type of directory where it can be cleaned out after some time period or based on free space requirements. As an aside there is an extundelete but I am not sure how well it works. -- Alvin Starr || voice: (905)513-7688 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133 alvin@netvel.net ||