GNU bug report logs - #12339
Bug: rm -fr . doesn't dir depth first deletion yet it is documented to do so.

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Message #188 received at 12339 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: "Alan Curry" <pacman-cu <at> kosh.dhis.org>
To: eblake <at> redhat.com (Eric Blake)
Cc: Linda Walsh <coreutils <at> tlinx.org>, 12339 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#12339: Bug: rm -fr . doesn't dir depth first deletion yet it
Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2012 17:08:44 -0500 (GMT+5)

Eric Blake writes:
> 
> Indeed, reading the original V7 source code from 1979:
> http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=3DV7/usr/src/cmd/rm.c
> 
[...]
> 
> shows that _only_ ".." was special, "." was attempted in-place and
> didn't fail until the unlink(".") after the directory itself had been
> emptied.  It wasn't until later versions of code that "." also became
> special.

I also decided to look around there, and found some of the turning points:

Up to 4.2BSD, the V7 behavior was kept.
(http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4.2BSD/usr/src/bin/rm.c)

rm -rf . was forbidden in 4.3BSD (26 years ago).
http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4.3BSD/usr/src/bin/rm.c

The removal of dir/. (and dir/..) was not forbidden until Reno.
http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4.3BSD-Reno/src/bin/rm/rm.c
        cp = rindex(arg, '/');
        if (cp == NULL)
                cp = arg;
        else
                ++cp;
        if (isdot(cp)) {
                fprintf(stderr, "rm: cannot remove `.' or `..'\n");
                return (0);
        }

Maybe the classical behavior stuck around longer in the more SysV-ish Unices.
The Ultrix-11 3.1 tree on TUHS from 1988 has a rm that looks very much like
V7, but I can't find anything to compare it to until OpenSolaris.

Did POSIX force BSD to change their rm in 1988? I think it's more likely that
POSIX simply documents a restriction that BSD had already added. Either way
the latest POSIX revisions certainly can't be blamed.

-- 
Alan Curry

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