rm feature request

[Ian Lynagh]

Hi all

My backup scripts are creating directory trees like this:

mkdir foo
touch foo/bar (optional)
chmod 0 foo

and, when they come to be rotated, rm -rf foo will not delete the tree
as it can't chdir to foo. I am currently running chmod u+rwx
recursively first, but this strikes me as an ugly and inefficient
solution.

I submitted a patch which basically added

/* Make target directory u+rwx if it isn't already */
if ((!(fs->mode & S_IRUSR) || !(fs->mode & S_IWUSR) || !(fs->mode & S_IXUSR))
        && !x->interactive)
  /* We don't care about errors here, let them get caught below */
  chmod (dir_name, fs->mode | S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR | S_IXUSR);

before trying to chdir but Jim Meyering said that this went against
history and standards. I then suggested it use a different parameter to
be enabled and offered to write a patch, but he said I should post here
and depending on the response he would decide if it was worth adding to
GNU rm.


So, does anyone have any comments?


Thanks in advance
Ian