rm 8.1

[Ladislav Hagara]

Hi all,

the behaviour of rm from last stable coreutils 8.1 is quite different
from previous 7.6 one.
When using new rm lots of strange message appear: rm: invalid argument:
`', for example when run make in libxt sources.
Moreover some scrips which until now have removed files don't work with
new rm.

Example:

Previous rm prints message "No such file or directory" and removes files:

$ rm --version | head -n 1
rm (GNU coreutils) 7.6
$ touch a b c; rm a b "" c; ls
rm: cannot remove `': No such file or directory
$

New 8.1 rm prints another message "invalid argument" and DOESN'T remove
files:

# rm --version | head -n 1
rm (GNU coreutils) 8.1
# touch a b c; rm a b "" c; ls
rm: invalid argument: `'
a  b  c
#

This problem arises when variable isn't defined, for example rm "$FILE".

Is this a bug or a new feature of rm 8.1?
Should all scripts be rewritten (test if file really exist and then
remove it) or new rm 8.2 will again remove files?

Thanks.

-- 
Ladislav Hagara
http://www.sourcemage.org/