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

[Pádraig Brady]

On 01/09/16 11:00, Ed Avis wrote:
> % touch a
> % rm a a
> rm: cannot remove 'a': No such file or directory
> 
> It might be better for rm to remember that it has seen the filename 'a' 
> before, and just warn rather than check the filesystem again.
> This would be a bit more user-friendly and a bit faster, if you accept that 
> filesystem operations are slower than doing user-space checking of seen 
> filenames.
> It would not catch 'rm a ./a' and similar cases but it would be an 
> improvement.

I'm inclined to leave this as is
as it's not a common issue, nor particularly confusing.

Also consider the following cases where you would want the warning:

$ bar=bar
$ touch foo foo$bar
$ rm foo foo$Bar

$ touch foo ../foo
$ rm foo ./foo

thanks,
Pádraig