Re: lynx-dev Removing a file with 'r' - /bin and /etc gone

[Thomas Dickey]

On Fri, 9 Jan 2004, [ISO-8859-1] Fr?d?ric L. W. Meunier wrote:

> Something really strange happened on Cygwin. I don't know what
> might have caused it.
>
> I used 'r' to remove a file (ver_precos.html, which was in
> another partition - FAT32), and for some reason /bin and /etc
> were also removed. The only files left were the ones in use,
> like cygwin1.dll. The other directories in / (/home /lib /mnt
> /tmp /usr /var) weren't affected.
>
> I tried to reproduce it but couldn't.

Lynx uses "rm -rf" rather than "rm -f", not distinguishing between file
and directory.  Pat Walsh noted this a few months ago (September 27) and
recommended that it be changed.  (This is one of 4-5 items on my next
to-do list).  I'm not sure what would result in an incorrect pathname, but
taking the "-r" option away would probably reduce this particular problem.

(It's more complicated than just taking that option out, since it still
needs some logic to provide a remove-directory operation and integrate it
with the existing structure).

-- 
Thomas E. Dickey
http://invisible-island.net
ftp://invisible-island.net

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