GNU bug report logs - #21084
rm appears to no longer be POSIX compliant (as of 2013 edition) re: deleting empty dirs and files under <path>/.

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Package: coreutils;

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

Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2015 07:57:01 UTC

Severity: normal

Tags: notabug

Done: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Linda Walsh <coreutils <at> tlinx.org>
To: bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org
Subject: rm appears to no longer be POSIX compliant (as of 2013 edition) re:
 deleting empty dirs and files under <path>/.
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2015 00:55:46 -0700

In looking at the 2013 specification for rm
(http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/rm.html),

it no longer says to stop processing if the path basename equals
"." or "..". 

It says that the entries "." and ".." shall not be removed.  It
also says rm <empty dir> shall behave like "rmdir" -- i.e. it will
delete empty directories.

But in the case of foo/. it would be expected to process child inodes
before processing the directory itself.

But step 4 on that page says that rm should remove empty directories
without requiring other special switches.
This bug report was last modified 9 years and 297 days ago.

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