Subject: Re: bug#16862: Feature Request for rm

From: Bob Proulx <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2014 23:28:47 -0700

severity 16862 wishlist
close 16862
thanks

Hello Marc,

Marc Perkel wrote:
> Minor feature request
> Suggest -q (for quiet) for rm command. No error code if file doesn't exist.
> rm -q file
> rather tham
> rm file 2> /dev/null

The 'rm' program already handles this feature using the -f option.  It
is a standard idiom.  Instead of -q you want -f.

  rm -f file

This is much better than 'rm file 2> /dev/null' because errors are
properly reported to the caller.

The documentation says:

  -f
  --force
     Ignore nonexistent files and missing operands, and never prompt
     the user.  Ignore any previous --interactive (-i) option.

Since this is a standard feature I am marking the ticket closed.
Please feel free to add further discussion into the bug log.

Bob