Re: [wishlist] rm -rf to alter directories permissions if necessary

[Yaroslav Halchenko]

On Sun, 01 Feb 2015, Pádraig Brady wrote:

> On 01/02/15 02:19, Yaroslav Halchenko wrote:
> > ATM (Debian jessie/sid with coreutils 8.23-3):

> >> mkdir -p d1/d2; touch d1/d2/f1; chmod -w d1/d2; rm -rf d1
> > rm: cannot remove ‘d1/d2/f1’: Permission denied

> > so to 'rm -rf d1' I need first to chmod +w all directories... although at 
> > times
> > fs not really an issue, but I am testing git-annex repositories with up to a
> > million of files.  Thus running both first recursive chmod and then rm -r
> > sounds (and feels) quite wasteful.  So I wondered to suggest/ask if
> > implementing alternation of the parent's directory permissions if --force 
> > would
> > be provided be a sensible extension to rm?

> > PS Please CC me -- I am not on the list

> This was previously discussed at:
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/2003-11/msg00058.html

> From my point of view, adding a new flag would essentially
> be combining chmod(1) and rm(1) functionality for no functional gain
> (no extra atomicity for example).  It might have some performance
> benefits, but I don't think that's significant enough here.

Thank you Pádraig -- indeed quite an old issue!  Well -- even if there
is no "functional gain", as it is a reoccurring question, and hopefully
there is a growing number of git-annex users,   it might be a quite
useful usability feature for some of us.  As for performance -- I expect
it to be quite of significant gain (didn't patch/time it yet) on large
directories structures.  

Just My 1c for now.  May be I would come up with a patch later and
provide quantitative assessment of a performance benefits here (not to
mention the convenience of using 1 command instead of two).

Cheers!
-- 
Yaroslav O. Halchenko, Ph.D.
http://neuro.debian.net http://www.pymvpa.org http://www.fail2ban.org
Research Scientist,            Psychological and Brain Sciences Dept.
Dartmouth College, 419 Moore Hall, Hinman Box 6207, Hanover, NH 03755
Phone: +1 (603) 646-9834                       Fax: +1 (603) 646-1419
WWW:   http://www.linkedin.com/in/yarik