From: Eric Blake Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2012 21:29:37 +0000 (-0700) Subject: docs: tweak 'rm -f' limitations X-Git-Tag: v2.68b~6 X-Git-Url: http://git.ipfire.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?a=commitdiff_plain;h=989c790c4f3e24ab68244575bbdf372688e4e8ed;p=thirdparty%2Fautoconf.git 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) : More details on 'rm -f' without files. Signed-off-by: Eric Blake --- 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