Hi Ingo,
On Sun, Jun 25, 2017 at 03:12:26PM +0200, Ingo Schwarze wrote:
| Hi,
|
| Job Snijders wrote on Sun, Jun 25, 2017 at 02:06:16PM +0200:
|
| > This patch adds a '-v' option to rm(1) for more verbose output.
|
| Do not add new options to standard utilities, unless you can show
| that they are unusually useful in practice *and* practically
| every other system out there has them, with a compatible user
| interface across practically all systems.
|
| Adding -v to rm(1) probably wouldn't make the very high bar against
| adding non-standard options even if almost everybody else had it
| (which i didn't check, to not waste time) because it's completely
| useless.
|
| If you are really unsure, study the output of
|
| $ find *
|
| first, before typing
|
| $ rm -rf *
|
| No non-standard option is needed at all for this.
Very bad example. You study the output of find * and another process
writes a new file in the mean time. With rm -v, you would've known.
The solution here (currently) is to find * -delete -print. That
solves it for rm (well, it moves the problem elsewhere (and is more to
type)), but doesn't help the mv or cp cases. And I'd say that for
completeness' sake, the option should be added to all three of these
(or none, as is currently the case).
| It's also strongly in violation of the UNIX philosophy (each utility,
| do one thing, and do it well). rm(1) removes files, and does so
| well. rm(1) does *not* trespass on ls(1) and find(1) territory to
| list files.
Well, find(1) trespasses the rm(1) territory with its -delete option,
the only real solution to doing what you suggested.
Reporting on what you did is still doing your job. Just a bit more
verbose (which, in certain situations, I would consider a BETTER job).
Comparing rm(1) to ls(1) is weird: ls doesn't delete files. In this
case, rm(1) isn't "listing" the files as ls(1) does, it *reports* on
files that have been deleted. A small, but significant difference.
| Besides, they way your proposed rm(1) extension lists
| files is not doing it well at all. The output is awful.
Agreed. Just listing the filename(s) would suffice.
Paul 'WEiRD' de Weerd
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