bug#10802: rmdir -p behaviour

[Paul Ruane]

Apologies, I did not copy the mailing list on part of the discussion.

On 14 February 2012 20:48, Jim Meyering <address@hidden> wrote:
>>>I should have asked up front,
>>>Have you considered the --ignore-fail-on-non-empty option?

>>Um, no! That's perfect. Not sure why I didn't see that before: either
my eyes skipped it or I disregarded it but it's there, as plain as
day.
>> Actually it's not quite perfect I have to do 'rmdir -p
>> --ignore-fail-on-non-empty a/b a/c a/d a/e' rather than my proposed
>> 'rmdir -d a' but it'll do at a pinch.

> or this:
>  rmdir -p --ig a/[bcde]

This does solve the problem but means I have to list all of the leaf
nodes of the branch I wish to remove. I still can't help but think
there should be a --descendents option to allow a branch (of empty
directories) to be removed more simply. The above would then simply
become:

$ rmdir -d a

Even if directories b, c, d and e have children themselves.