Re: rm issue

[Paul Eggert]

Ken Nellis <address@hidden> writes:

> I write to recommend a change to the "rm" command: When deleting the
> files specified on the command line, when encountering one that
> doesn't exist, after diagnosing the error, rm should immediately
> terminate instead of the current procedure of continuing to delete
> files.

We can't really change the default behavior of 'rm' here, since many
people rely on it and it is required by POSIX
<http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/rm.html>.

However, we could have an option along those lines.  Users who prefer
that behavior then could alias "rm" to rm-with-the-option.

FreeBSD has an -I option, with the following meaning:

     -I          Request confirmation once if more than three files are being
                 removed or if a directory is being recursively removed.  This
                 is a far less intrusive option than -i yet provides almost
                 the same level of protection against mistakes.

Would that suffice?