GNU bug report logs - #7985
Inconsistancy

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

From: Tom Tijerina <swonsay <at> gmail.com>
To: bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org
Subject: Inconsistancy
Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2011 18:22:44 -0500

I have a friend I'm trying to get into learning Linux, not wanting to
hand feed him every command I've instructed him to use man when he get
stuck or needs help on how to use a command. 

He ran man rm and it says at the top its for removing files OR
directories. That is not correct as it does not give you any information
for removing directories. I assumed it may be an option of some sort but
I have not found it in the man page. Is this an oversight? 


------------------
RM(1)                            User Commands
RM(1)

NAME
       rm - remove files or directories



If this is something positive credit should be given to Ron Flowers. He
is the one who pointed it out to me. 

Running Debian Lenny, GNU coreutils 8.5

Thanks.

Message #8 received at 7985 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eric Blake <eblake <at> redhat.com>
To: Tom Tijerina <swonsay <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 7985 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#7985: Inconsistancy
Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2011 14:51:38 -0700

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

On 02/03/2011 04:22 PM, Tom Tijerina wrote:
> I have a friend I'm trying to get into learning Linux, not wanting to
> hand feed him every command I've instructed him to use man when he get
> stuck or needs help on how to use a command. 
> 
> He ran man rm and it says at the top its for removing files OR
> directories. That is not correct as it does not give you any information
> for removing directories. I assumed it may be an option of some sort but
> I have not found it in the man page. Is this an oversight? 

Thanks for the report, however, the sentence is correct as-is.

$ mkdir dir
$ rm -r dir

successfully removes the directory dir.

The -r option already has this text:

  -r, -R, --recursive   remove directories and their contents recursively


About the only thing that might be worth doing is rewording from one
accurate sentence to another, but I don't know of anything better than
this, and prefer the terseness of the original sentence (man pages are
generated from the --help output, and --help should be a complete
overview while still being concise):

rm - remove files or directory hierarchies

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake <at> redhat.com    +1-801-349-2682
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

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Message #13 received at 7985-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Pádraig Brady <P <at> draigBrady.com>
To: Tom Tijerina <swonsay <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 7985-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#7985: Inconsistancy
Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2011 21:52:50 +0000

On 03/02/11 23:22, Tom Tijerina wrote:
> I have a friend I'm trying to get into learning Linux, not wanting to
> hand feed him every command I've instructed him to use man when he get
> stuck or needs help on how to use a command. 
> 
> He ran man rm and it says at the top its for removing files OR
> directories. That is not correct as it does not give you any information
> for removing directories. I assumed it may be an option of some sort but
> I have not found it in the man page. Is this an oversight? 

$ rm --help | grep directories
  -r, -R, --recursive   remove directories and their contents recursively
By default, rm does not remove directories.  Use the --recursive (-r or -R)

Also the man page is automatically generated from --help output.

cheers,
Pádraig.

Message #16 received at 7985 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Bob Proulx <bob <at> proulx.com>
To: Tom Tijerina <swonsay <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 7985 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#7985: Inconsistancy
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 15:08:49 -0700

Tom Tijerina wrote:
> He ran man rm and it says at the top its for removing files OR
> directories. That is not correct as it does not give you any information
> for removing directories. I assumed it may be an option of some sort but
> I have not found it in the man page. Is this an oversight? 

Of course the full documentation is available in the info pages.  You
would be helping your friend out quite a bit if you gave him
instruction in accessing the info pages which tend to be more useful.

As to the man page the man page says:

  DESCRIPTION
       This  manual  page  documents  the  GNU version of rm.  rm removes each
       specified file.  By default, it does not remove directories.

So you are correct that by default rm will not remove a directory.

  $ mkdir testdir
  $ rm testdir
  rm: cannot remove `testdir': Is a directory

The man page then goes on to list the options.

  OPTIONS
       ...
       -r, -R, --recursive
              remove directories and their contents recursively

There is the information you missed.  The rm command will remove
directories recursively when the -r option has been added.

  $ mkdir -p testdir
  $ ls -ldog testdir
  drwxrwxr-x 2 4096 Feb  4 14:55 testdir
  $ rm -r testdir
  $ ls -ldog testdir
  ls: cannot access testdir: No such file or directory
  $ 

So it appears to me that the command and the documentation for it are
there.  I think you just missed seeing it.  Most GNU/Unix users are so
accustomed to useing 'rm -rf somethingsomething' that we don't often
look at the documentation for it anymore.  But I believe it is there
okay just the same.  :-)

For completeness here is the online standards documentation.

  http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/rm.html

The -r option goes way back to the original Unix rm command forty
years ago.

> If this is something positive credit should be given to Ron Flowers. He
> is the one who pointed it out to me. 

You are building good karma by passing along the credit!  Good job.

> Running Debian Lenny, GNU coreutils 8.5

Hmm...  Not to cause a distraction here since it is completely
irrelevant but Lenny uses version 6.10 and Squeeze/Sid is 8.5 with the
expectation that Squeeze will release this weekend.  And then Sid will
upgrade to 8.10 which was released just today.  I think you crossed
your wires!  :-)

Bob

Message #19 received at 7985 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Tom Tijerina <swonsay <at> gmail.com>
To: 7985 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2011 17:39:06 -0500

Thank you for your replies guys, I'm sorry we both managed to miss it.
The wording is a bit on the odd side but it is fine the way it is. 

Sorry I wasted your time and thanks for making this wonderful system
work on such a consistent basis. I wouldn't know how to operate with a
buggy commercial OS at this point.

Tom

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