GNU bug report logs - #52206
Bug: rm -rf /*/*

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Package: coreutils;

Reported by: Robert Swinford <robert.swinford <at> gmail.com>

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2021 20:27:01 UTC

Severity: normal

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

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

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Message #11 received at 52206 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: Robert Swinford <robert.swinford <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 52206 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#52206: Bug: rm -rf /*/*
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2021 12:56:04 -0800

On 11/30/21 11:58, Robert Swinford wrote:

> This seems like a bug: https://twitter.com/nixcraft/status/1465599844299411458

I don't see a coreutils bug there: rm operated as specified.

> Interestingly, however, rm -rf // only does the following:

Yes, that's a special feature of GNU rm.

> I believe illumos has already solved this problem in a POSIX compliant fashion

Not sure what you're talking about here. Could you be specific? Don't 
have time to watch videos.

> BTW, zsh globbing doesn’t exhibit this behavior!  It seems it is only a problem in bash.

In that case, the bug (whatever it is) wouldn't be a coreutils bug.
This bug report was last modified 3 years and 224 days ago.

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