Re: shred command. Autodetect file type

[Bauke Jan Douma]

John Darrington wrote on 05-12-06 01:41:
>         Why not use the stat system call to find out what type of file
>         we're dealing with, and then remove or not remove accordingly ?
>      
>      That might cause a suprise in some cases.  It is better to have a
>      consitent behaviour than have different behaviours for different types
>      of files. 
>
> Why?  Other core GNU commands modify their behaviour based upon the
> file type.  For example tar and ls treat their arguments differently
> depending upon whether they are names of directories or names of
> files.

Maybe that's justified by the fact that they're a tad less destructive?

bjd