diff options
| author | Eric Blake <eblake@redhat.com> | 2012-02-16 14:29:37 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Eric Blake <eblake@redhat.com> | 2012-02-16 14:29:37 -0700 |
| commit | 989c790c4f3e24ab68244575bbdf372688e4e8ed (patch) | |
| tree | 4d07eefc24eae9f49a653656a3f72ee4c5146112 | |
| parent | e32b90e41f51e607d7974e24f04ecc75e1d75943 (diff) | |
| download | autoconf-989c790c4f3e24ab68244575bbdf372688e4e8ed.tar.gz | |
docs: tweak 'rm -f' limitations
Based on http://debbugs.gnu.org/10819 and
http://austingroupbugs.net/view.php?id=542
* doc/autoconf.texi (Limitations of Usual Tools) <rm>: More
details on 'rm -f' without files.
Signed-off-by: Eric Blake <eblake@redhat.com>
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/autoconf.texi | 10 |
1 files changed, 6 insertions, 4 deletions
diff --git a/doc/autoconf.texi b/doc/autoconf.texi index 82837a2b..607d8dcd 100644 --- a/doc/autoconf.texi +++ b/doc/autoconf.texi @@ -19225,10 +19225,12 @@ This problem no longer exists in Mac OS X 10.4.3. @prindex @command{rm} The @option{-f} and @option{-r} options are portable. -It is not portable to invoke @command{rm} without operands. For -example, on many systems @samp{rm -f -r} (with no other arguments) -silently succeeds without doing anything, but it fails with a diagnostic -on NetBSD 2.0.2. +It is not portable to invoke @command{rm} without options or operands. +On the other hand, Posix now requires @command{rm -f} to silently +succeed when there are no operands (useful for constructs like +@command{rm -rf $filelist} without first checking if @samp{$filelist} +was empty). But this was not always portable; at least NetBSD +@command{rm} built before 2008 would fail with a diagnostic. A file might not be removed even if its parent directory is writable and searchable. Many Posix hosts cannot remove a mount point, a named |