Bill Hacker wrote: > The *original* task was to delete all files in a single subdir. > > Regardless. > > But w/o panicing a running IMAP daemon that might want to add a few new > ones during the process. > > It was, after all, a Maildir/.Trash folder..
echo * | xargs rm That's what I've been using in such cases for 15 years. Works in every shell. (Do not use it in world-writable directories, though; it can be exploited. But the same is true for "rm *", too.) You can, of course, put Simon's xrm() shell function in your shell startup script (I was about to suggest a similar function, but Simon beat me to it). You can even call it rm so you can type "rm *" and it'll handle any size of arguments. The only problem is that you need to remember it when you're logged into a machine where you don't have that function. And when writing (portable) shell scripts, of course. Another problem is that that function solves the problem for rm only. You would need similar functions for grep, sed, cat, tail and so on. The xargs solution is generic because it can be combined with every tool, so it's more in the spirit of UNIX. Best regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing b. M. Handelsregister: Registergericht Muenchen, HRA 74606, Geschäftsfuehrung: secnetix Verwaltungsgesellsch. mbH, Handelsregister: Registergericht Mün- chen, HRB 125758, Geschäftsführer: Maik Bachmann, Olaf Erb, Ralf Gebhart FreeBSD-Dienstleistungen, -Produkte und mehr: http://www.secnetix.de/bsd
