Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bbn!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!cadre!pitt!darth!orac!pat
From: pat@orac.UUCP (Pat Barron)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: none.
Message-ID: <136@orac.UUCP>
Date: 28 Nov 88 02:05:02 GMT
References: <9784@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <129@orac.UUCP> <4596@ptsfa.PacBell.COM>
Reply-To: pat@orac.UUCP (Pat Barron)
Lines: 18

In article <4596@ptsfa.PacBell.COM> dmt@ptsfa.PacBell.COM (Dave Turner) writes:
]In article <129@orac.UUCP> pat@orac.UUCP (Pat Barron) writes:
]>Big mistake.  You've just probably destroyed all the user directories on
]>the machine, since ".*" matches "..", too.  Nice going.
]
]Maybe on some UNIX systems, but the man page for rm on System V states:
]
]	".... It is forbidden to remove the file .. merely to avoid
]	the antisocial consequences of inadvertently doing something like:
]
]		rm -r .*						"

I, of course, must have been asleep when I posted my original article...  Dave
is quite correct.  I must have been thinking about a situation I had gotten
myself in when the ".." was not at the beginning of the filename (this was
also pointed out by someone else - sorry, I don't have the attribution handy).

--Pat.