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Date:      Sun, 28 Nov 2004 12:54:57 -0600
From:      Chris <racerx@makeworld.com>
To:        Oliver Fuchs <oliverfuchs@onlinehome.de>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: what does "rm //" delete?
Message-ID:  <41AA1F01.7080404@makeworld.com>
In-Reply-To: <20041128112146.GA1696@oliverfuchs.onlinehome.de>
References:  <20041128112146.GA1696@oliverfuchs.onlinehome.de>

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Oliver Fuchs wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I had a directory which contained the following:
> 
> ls showed me simple this: "?" with 0 bytes
> ls -axl showed me nothing
> 
> So I tried to delete the directory but could not succeed with "rm -R"
> because the "directory is not empty". I changed to the directory and tried
> to delete everything inside with "rm *" but also did not succeed. It seemed
> that the file had no name. So than I did a mistake and wanted to delete the
> file with no name with the operation:
> 
> rm -R //
> 
> This was a big mistake which I noticed soon enough (some files in /bin were
> deleted). I could repair the damage but what I want to know is what exactly
> is
> 
> rm -R //
> 
> deleting. It seems that it is deleting everything?
> 
> Thanx in advance
> 
> Oliver
> 

When you have a filename that is odd, I use the syntax:

rm "whatever the file name is"
  Enclosing it in "" works well for me.

-- 
Best regards,
Chris

Forgive and remember.



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