On Wed, Feb 12, 2025, at 2:02 PM, Andrés Rodríguez Reina wrote: > And I also > agree that any other substitution is subject to cause the same > confusion, but the case with the tilde expansion produces more damage > to inexperienced users. I mean: "rm -rf *" just deletes the whole > folder contents, while "rm -rf ~" deletes all your files (similarly > with other destructive commands).
Depending on the current working directory, "rm -rf *" could easily be more catastrophic than "rm -rf ~". > For example: "rm -rf /" is also unambiguous, yet the command warns you > about the possible unintended consequences. > > In any case, I'd say that in interactive mode and with a specific flag > active, I could find useful that no command with a $name/*/~/etc is > executed when a file by the same name is present at the current > directory. It's one thing for a command that knows its own destructiveness to warn about that. It's another for the shell itself to do a bunch of I/O before even beginning to process a command that might end up being benign. > Advanced users can easily disable the flag and obtain full > power/risk. I'm not sure this would fly as the new default. -- vq
