[ale] delete all files but leave folder structure intact

[Geoffrey Myers]

Lightner, Jeff wrote:
> MY premise was in the first part - the second part is what YOU are
> assuming was my premise.   Since I wrote it I know what the premise was.
> 
> Does this really need to be argued ad nauseum?  In my first response I
> admitted that I'd misspoken in the second part and amended it to "rm -rf
> .*".

Just having some fun...

> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of
> Geoffrey Myers
> Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 1:57 PM
> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
> Subject: Re: [ale] delete all files but leave folder structure intact
> 
> Lightner, Jeff wrote:
>> No my original premise was simply to warn a newbie never try to match
>> with ".*" because it does bad things.
> 
> Uh, hate to be picky, but, I quote:
> 
> "Also be sure NEVER to do "rm .*" in any directory.   Many a newbie has
> surprised themselves by trying to remove .profile, .bashrc .mozilla
> etc... that way.
> 
> The ".*" will match ".." which is a hard link to the parent directory so
> tells it to remove a directory above."
> 
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of
>> Geoffrey Myers
>> Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 1:28 PM
>> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
>> Subject: Re: [ale] delete all files but leave folder structure intact
>>
>> Lightner, Jeff wrote:
>>> No but it can remove the other files/directories below the parent.
>> True, but the original premise was it would remove $HOME when executed
> 
>> from $HOME.
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of
>>> Geoffrey Myers
>>> Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 12:23 PM
>>> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
>>> Subject: Re: [ale] delete all files but leave folder structure intact
>>>
>>> Lightner, Jeff wrote:
>>>> Picky picky
>>>>
>>>> Then don't ever do "rm -rf .*"
>>> Sorry, still won't remove the directory you're sitting in:
>>>
>>> centosvmfoo> rm -rf .*
>>> rm: cannot remove `.' or `..'
>>> rm: cannot remove `.' or `..'
>>>
>>> :)
>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of
>>>> Geoffrey Myers
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 7:50 AM
>>>> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
>>>> Subject: Re: [ale] delete all files but leave folder structure
> intact
>>>> Lightner, Jeff wrote:
>>>>> Also be sure NEVER to do "rm .*" in any directory.   Many a newbie
>>> has
>>>>> surprised themselves by trying to remove .profile, .bashrc .mozilla
>>>>> etc... that way.
>>>> Pretty sure that's not going to work as since you're in the
>> directory,
>>>> you can't remove it.  Further, you can't remove a directory with
> 'rm'
>>>> without the recursive option.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> The ".*" will match ".." which is a hard link to the parent
>> directory
>>>> so
>>>>> tells it to remove a directory above.
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of
>>>>> Michael B. Trausch
>>>>> Sent: Monday, April 18, 2011 3:46 PM
>>>>> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
>>>>> Subject: Re: [ale] delete all files but leave folder structure
>> intact
>>>>> On 04/18/2011 03:22 PM, Ed Cashin wrote:
>>>>>> To read into your question a bit, I'll assume you'd like to remove
>>>>>> special files and symbolic links and named fifos as well as
> regular
>>>>>> files.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>   find xyz ! -type d -print0 | xargs -0 rm
>>>>> Nice.  I hadn't thought of that.
>>>>>
>>>>> 	--- Mike
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> 
> 


-- 
Until later, Geoffrey

"I predict future happiness for America if they can prevent
the government from wasting the labors of the people under
the pretense of taking care of them."
- Thomas Jefferson