From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 Galeon/1.2.5 (X11; Linux i686; U;) Gecko/20020712 Description of problem: Fileutils 4.1.9 contains a rewrite of rm that interactively queries you if you want to remove a dangling symlink. If it is not a dangling symlink it simply deletes it. I find this new behavior with dangling symlinks very annoying and would like it reverted to old behavior. Fileutils 4.1 from 7.3 has the expected behavior. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. ln -s foo foo 2. rm foo Actual Results: rm: remove symbolic link `foo'? Expected Results: Return to prompt Additional info: Limbo beta2
CLOSED->NOTABUG You have rm aliased as 'rm -i', probably because you are logged in as root. The superuser's .bashrc makes this alias to protect the unwary admin from accidentally nuking their filesystem. This alias has been in place for a *long* time, at least since RH6.2. This only thing new with rm is that it is now a little more descriptive about the file in question. Before it would simply prompt "rm: remove `foo`?", whereas now it describes the type of file. For example, # touch foo2 # rm foo2 rm: remove regular empty file `foo2'? n # echo foo >foo3 # rm foo3 rm: remove regular file `foo3'? n If you want to override the alias for a single command, you can quote it # 'rm' foo3 or you can use the -f option # rm -f foo You can remove the alias for a session with the unalias command. # unalias rm # rm foo I would not recommend removing the alias from root's .bashrc. It is a good think to have in place, and it will probably save your data one day.
Nevermind. I see your problem now. Sorry for the lecture. I guess I just see too many no-bugs.
Also, should rm describe the file as a broken symlink, rather than just a symlink. I mean as long is it's telling you when files are empty.....
In non-interactive mode, ie in an executing script, rm should NEVER query the user for wether or not to delete something. bug #69713 was probably caused by this change. Scripts should not IMHO have to force -f in order to delete things.
Fixed in 4.1.9-10