<<On Thu, 28 Jan 1999 05:48:31 +0200 (SAT), Robert Nordier
<rnord...@nordier.com> said:
> | COMPATIBILITY
> | The rm utility differs from historical implementations in that
> | the -f option only masks attempts to remove non-existent
> | files instead of masking a large variety of errors.
I went down to our reading room and examined 1003.2. It says quite
clearly that `-f' has ONLY the following two effects:
1) Suppress warnings for non-existent files specified on the
command line.
2) Suppress interaction when removing an unwritable file even
when standard input is connected to a terminal.
It specifically requires that diagnostics be generated for any errors
resulting from unlink() or rmdir(). (The rationale dismisses the
historic behavior by describing it as ``hardly doing a service to
either shell programmers or interactive users''.)
The synopsis given is:
rm [-firR] file ...
...which indicates that at least one `file' argument is required. It
also indicates that `-f' and `-i' are not mutually exclusive.
Furthermore, 1003.2 prohibits our `-d' flag; `rm' is always required
to call rmdir() when a directory is specifed on the command line.
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | O Siem / We are all family / O Siem / We're all the same
woll...@lcs.mit.edu | O Siem / The fires of freedom
Opinions not those of| Dance in the burning flame
MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| - Susan Aglukark and Chad Irschick
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