Re: rm feature: don't attempt to remove the same file twice

[Sami Kerola]

On 1 September 2016 at 16:39, Ed Avis <address@hidden> wrote:
> In fact, 'rm -f a a' still does twice the filesystem operations.
> It still calls newfstatat(AT_FDCWD, "a", ...) twice and unlinkat(AT_FDCWD, 
> "a", 0) twice, on my system.
>
> What I am suggesting is to check for the same filename string having been 
> seen before and avoid touching the filesystem.
> This is a small user-friendliness improvement in the mode without -f, since 
> "warning: file 'a' specified twice" is easier to understand
> than "cannot remove 'a': No such file or directory", but it is also a 
> performance improvement.
> Pretty marginal I admit, except perhaps for a network filesystem hosted by a 
> server on the other side of the planet.

This looks valid to me

rm a a

there could be other process, such as

touch a a

running parallel.

-- 
Sami Kerola
http://www.iki.fi/kerolasa/