Re: rm -I patch (Re: Protection from the dreaded "rm -fr /")

["Devon H. O'Dell" <dodell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Matthew Dillon wrote:
>     I think I'll commit something like this to DragonFly (you might
>     get patch errors w/ FreeBSD but this is the basic idea).
>
> 					-Matt

From the hackers@ thread on FreeBSD:

> Index: rm.1
> ===================================================================
> RCS file: /cvs/src/bin/rm/rm.1,v
> retrieving revision 1.2
> diff -u -r1.2 rm.1
> --- rm.1	17 Jun 2003 04:22:50 -0000	1.2
> +++ rm.1	6 Oct 2004 01:34:12 -0000
> @@ -81,6 +81,11 @@
>  option overrides any previous
>  .Fl f
>  options.
> +.It Fl I
> +Request confirmation once if more then three files are being removed or if a
> +directory is being recursively removed.  This is a less intrusive dumb-user
> +option then
> +.Fl i
>  .It Fl P
>  Overwrite regular files before deleting them.
>  Files are overwritten three times, first with the byte pattern 0xff,

Not to be nitpicky, but this should have sed -i -e s/then/than/g

Additionally, I'd suggest a different monicker than ``dumb-user'' -- 
I've accidentally wiped several things several times with a screwed up 
rm -rf. Ok, you could argue that I'm not the smartest guy, but ... ;) 
Perhaps:

This is an option perhaps more suitable for reducing accidents than
. Fl i

--Devon