Re: Adding new features to 'rm mv cp'

[Jim Meyering]

Steve <address@hidden> wrote:
>    I have a question as a long time Linux user. Is there anyway
> possible to add a '--pretend'  switch to the commands 'rm cp mv'  for
> new users more so, but for people like I that help on IRC networks and
> get little sleep. I love contributing anyway I can. But root commands
> when tired equal BAD results even for a long time user.   Thanks so much
> for reading, hope u consider it.

Thanks for the suggestion.
I suppose you mean that this new option would be useful only with
--verbose, so that people would see what their command *would have* done.
Often, you can get the same effect by replacing the command with
e.g., echo rm would have removed these files: ...
But that wouldn't give the names of files inside directory arguments
when using --recursive.  In that case, using `find ... -print' should
be enough to list the source directories.

I'm reluctant to add such an option, because I suspect it'd end up
being more invasive than you might first expect, without adding
enough value.

An alternative is to use the --interactive (-i) option.