Re: Feature request: rm should implement option -p, --parents

[Kamil Dudka]

On Tuesday 07 of July 2009 19:31:06 Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> There is a reason it is not done: "make uninstall" cannot know, from
> looking at the installed tree alone, which set of directories existed
> before "make install" and which were created as part of it.  Of those
> that existed before, the user might want them to be kept, for various
> reasons: they could have special permissions or ownership, or their
> presence could be required by some other program that needs them.
> The former (existence before "make install") could be somehow recorded
> at install time (e.g., in the build tree), but the latter (shared-ness
> between packages) really cannot be discovered automatically.
>
> HTH (just as a data point to this issue; I don't intend to argue about
> the merits of rm -p).

I am not sure but I think similar approach is used by Portage on Gentoo Linux. 
It removes empty directories recursively on uninstall. The directories "which 
should be kept for various reasons" are marked by an empty file ".keep" 
within them and therefore not removed.

Kamil