fixing rm * (was: Worm/Passwords)

Charlie Geyer charlie at mica.stat.washington.edu
Thu Nov 24 14:03:21 AEST 1988


In article <2508 at aplcomm.jhuapl.edu> trn at aplcomm.jhuapl.edu (Tony Nardo) 
writes:
>In article <1067 at entropy.ms.washington.edu> charlie at mica.stat.washington.edu
>(Charlie Geyer) writes:
>>This is all very easy.  If you don't like rm(1) put
>>
>>  alias foo rm -i
>>
>>in your .cshrc...
>
>A half-measure.  If you *really* don't like rm(1), put
>
>	alias rm "rm -i"
>
>in your .cshrc file.  That way, if you want to use rm without the -i switch,
>you have to do a little extra work (/bin/rm).  By the same token,
>
>	alias cp "cp -i"
>
>can protect you from yourself with file copying.

Ah yes.  Well actually I do have

  alias rm rm -i
  alias cp cp -i
  alias mv mv -i
  set noclobber

in all of my .cshrc files.  I just didn't want to *recommend* such a 
practice knowing I'd get flamed for it.  Only once or twice have I 
forgotten with a new account that I haven't set these aliases *yet*.  

It is a bit of a pain embedding /bin/rm and /bin/mv in c-shell
scripts I write.  Can anyone tell me if this is nonportable?  Don't tell
me that if I would just write Bourne shell scripts that I wouldn't have to
worry about the stupid alias.  I know that.  Also don't tell me the c-shell
is nonportable.



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