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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Package: coreutils;

Reported by: Linda Walsh <coreutils <at> tlinx.org>

Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2012 00:34:02 UTC

Severity: normal

Done: Assaf Gordon <assafgordon <at> gmail.com>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

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Message #56 received at 12339 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Jim Meyering <jim <at> meyering.net>
To: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
Cc: Bernhard Voelker <mail <at> bernhard-voelker.de>,
	Linda Walsh <coreutils <at> tlinx.org>,
	"12339 <at> debbugs.gnu.org" <12339 <at> debbugs.gnu.org>
Subject: Re: bug#12339: Bug: rm -fr . doesn't dir depth first deletion yet it
	is	documented to do so.
Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2012 12:42:00 +0200

Paul Eggert wrote:

> On 09/03/2012 10:20 PM, Bernhard Voelker wrote:
>> the question is what rm should remove:
>> the symlink or the target?
>
> The convention in POSIX is that if a symlink is
> followed by '/', it's dereferenced.  So this does
> appear to be a bug in coreutils 'rm'.
>
> I confirmed that the bug does not occur with
> Solaris 11 'rm':
>
> $ mkdir d
> $ touch d/file
> $ ln -s d dl
> $ ls -al *
> lrwxrwxrwx   1 eggert   faculty        1 Sep  3 22:26 dl -> d

Same for FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE-p3:

    freebsd$ mkdir d; ln -s d s; /bin/rm -r s/; ls
    s@

But not with busybox 1.20.0-6:

    $ mkdir d; ln -s d s; busybox rm -r s/; ls
    d/

I have mixed feelings, but am leaning towards the
Solaris 11/FreeBSD behavior.
This bug report was last modified 6 years and 187 days ago.

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