fixing rm * (was: Worm/Passwords)

[Jeff Venters]

A simple solution for csh users:

The following alias will prevent wildcard expansions.  The actual wildcard
characters will be passed to the script.  Add the following alias to your
~/.cshrc:

alias rm ~/bin/del \!\*:q

Next, add the following shell script to your personal "bin" directory (or
wherever you like).  Obviously, the script could be made intellegent enough
to recognize "-f" but it would be slower (csh is very inefficient).  You
could write a C-program to do this slightly faster (you would still have
to fork a shell to glob the input arguments).
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#! /bin/csh -f
set nonomatch file=$0		# no wildcard matches allowed/get argv[0]
set exp_names=($argv)		# expand wildcards (if any)
#
# if the number words after globbing is not equal to the orignal,
# ask for conformation.
if ($#argv == $#exp_names) then
	/bin/rm $exp_names:q
	exit $status		# exit script here (faster)
else
	echo "$file:t: The following $#exp_names files will be deleted:"
	# show them the damage they could do
	/bin/ls -Fd $exp_names:q
	echo -n "Are you sure you want to do this (Y or N)? "
	if ($< =~ [Yy]) then
		exec /bin/rm $exp_names:q
	else
		echo ""
		echo "$file:t: aborted - no files deleted"
		exit (1)
	endif
endif
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Jeff Venters, Convex Computer Corporation, Richardson, Texas
Internet: venters at convex.COM  |  UUCP: {uiucuxc,sun,rice}!convex!venters
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