Re: rm - bug or user error?

[Eric Blake]

According to Michael Webb on 1/26/2010 6:19 PM:
> Hello,
> 
> This is just a nit I discovered, but I thought I'd pass it along.
> 
> I am within a directory containing directories dir1 and dir2 and *no*
> files starting with f.
> 
>   shell>  rm -rf dir1 dir2 f*
>   rm: No match.

Which version of rm?  GNU rm would at least print which file didn't match,
when -f is not in effect, so are you sure you aren't running some other
vendor's rm?

$ rm -r dir3*
rm: cannot remove `dir3*': No such file or directory

> 
> From the man page:
> 
>     -f, --force
>           ignore nonexistent files, never prompt
> 
> I suspect the "No match" is coming from the command line parsing and not
> rm itself.  However, the message starts with rm.

That message is not even typical of bash:

$ shopt -s failglob
$ rm -rf dir3*
bash: no match: dir3*

But it may indeed be output by your current shell, in which case, report
it as a bug to that shell for giving a misleading error message.

-- 
Don't work too hard, make some time for fun as well!

Eric Blake             address@hidden

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