Maybe he was using Windows PowerShell, which has adopted a lot of UNIX-isms
including  "rm" with recursive and force options. If it behaves anything like
DEL with recursive and force options, it will traverse UPWARDS as well as
DOWNWARDS in a directory tree (having been burned by that behaviour first-hand
a few years ago).

On 15 Apr 2016 at 12:47, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:

> | From: Stephen <stephen-d@rogers.com>
>
> | http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/man-deletes-entire-company-running-bad-line-code-article-1.2601239?cid=msn
>
> About "rm -rf", the article says:
>
>       The code usually deleted specific parts of a server or
>       computer, but because this code didn't have a specified
>       target, it deleted everything.
>
> This isn't true of the rm(1) command.  No operand means delete nothing.
>
> The story does not ring true for other reasons.  But it could be.

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