rmdir when directory is not empty

[Mike McCarty]

Jeff Vian wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-12-20 at 15:31 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote:
> 
>>On Tuesday 20 December 2005 13:20, Chasecreek Systemhouse wrote:
>>
>>>>OR rm -fr /dir/dir-delete-me
>>>
>>>That won't work on directories that have tens of thousands of files.
>>>--
>>>WC -Sx- Jones | http://ccsh.us/ | Open Source Consulting
>>
>>Oh?  That must mean that all those kernel src dir leftovers I've 
>>cleaned over the years are still around then.  But I can't find them.
>>
>>The pony trick is to use, as root, rm -fR name-of-directory
>>
> 
> FWIW I have seen several times the failure of a command when using
> globbing to create the filelist.  If the list of files is large enough
> (in the tens or maybe even hundreds of thousands) the shell hits a limit
> where it cannot process the list.

[snip]

This can happen, yes. But in this particular context, it is irrelevant.
Globbing is not an issue with

$ rm -fr /some/directory/path

The shell passes just three arguments to rm, to wit:

	"rm"
	"-fr"
	"/some/directory/path"

And *rm* traverses the directory, not the shell.

Mike
-- 
p="p=%c%s%c;main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}";main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}
This message made from 100% recycled bits.
You have found the bank of Larn.
I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
I speak only for myself, and I am unanimous in that!