Subject: bug#12339: [PATCH] rm: avoid bogus diagnostic for a slash-decorated symlink-to-dir

From: Bernhard Voelker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2012 08:41:34 +0200

On 09/05/2012 08:25 AM, Paul Eggert wrote:
> On 09/04/2012 06:55 PM, Linda A. Walsh wrote:
>  
>> So how do delete all files in the directory without wild cards?
>
> Why tie your hands behind your back?  Use wild cards:
> 
>   cd DIRECTORY && rm -fr * .[!.] .??*
> 
> If you do this a lot, put it into a shell script.
> It's not like the need is all that common, for most people,
> but if you need it that's what scripts are for.
> 
> If you fiddle with your shell settings about
> how wildcards are expanded, make
> sure your script does wildcards in the standard way.

Exactly, we're now at the point where globbing is the topic,
much way away from coreutils and rm.

Bash knows dotglob:

  $ mkdir d    ; cd d
  $ touch .a b ; mkdir c
  $ ( shopt -s dotglob ; rm -rv * )
  removed `.a'
  removed `b'
  removed directory: `c'

Have a nice day,
Berny