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From: "oread::barbanis"@CS-UMASS.arpa
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Bug in Ultrix2.0?
Message-ID: <10617@brl-adm.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 2-Dec-87 02:02:58 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-adm.10617
Posted: Wed Dec  2 02:02:58 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Dec-87 06:45:26 EST
Sender: news@brl-adm.ARPA
Lines: 17

>>If you are a superuser and do unlink("foo"), it always unlinks,
>>even if foo is a directory, and even if this directory is not
>>empty.
> 
>This is not a bug.  This is a feature.  How else are you going to
>remove an extra link to a directory when a directory somehow acquires
>one (disk glitch, kernel bug, or whatever

OK, so I was wrong; unlink(2) is supposed to unlink a (full)
directory *if* you are the superuser, and that's the way it
works on Ultrix.  (It's in the manual, too... :-) )
However, it does not work on Sun Unix 4.2, not even if you are the
superuser (no, it is not NFS; I tried it on the server).  Unlink
returns [EPERM] if you try it on a directory.  So what's wrong?

George Barbanis
UMass -- Amherst