Bug 76954 - rm fails to remove symbolic links
Summary: rm fails to remove symbolic links
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Linux
Classification: Retired
Component: fileutils
Version: 8.0
Hardware: i386
OS: Linux
high
high
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Tim Waugh
QA Contact: Mike McLean
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2002-10-30 02:20 UTC by Steve Bonneville
Modified: 2005-10-31 22:00 UTC (History)
0 users

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2002-10-30 12:58:59 UTC
Embargoed:


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Description Steve Bonneville 2002-10-30 02:20:03 UTC
Description of Problem:

  The rm command will not remove symlinks properly.  Behavior is different
  on ext2 and ext3 filesystems, but broken both places.
    On ext2, symlinks may not be removed at all.
    On ext3, symlinks to directories may not be removed.
  Worked fine in 7.3 with fileutils-4.1-10.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

  fileutils-4.1.9-11

Steps to Reproduce:

1. touch testfile; ln -s testfile linkfile
2. touch testdir; ln -s testdir linkdir
3. rm linkfile linkdir

Actual Results:
  rm: cannot remove `linkfile/': Not a directory.
  rm: cannot remove `linkdir/': Not a directory.

Expected Results:
  The symlinks "linkfile" and "linkdir" should be deleted.
  The file "testfile" and directory "testdir" should still exist.

Comment 1 Leonid Mamtchenkov 2002-10-30 12:58:53 UTC
First of all, you probably mistyped mkdir with touch in the second step, since
touch does not create directories, afaik.  Secondly, you try to remove the file
like a directory, i.e. with a slash at the end.  This gives the first error. 
Thirdly, since your linkdir is actually a file and not a directory, you get the
same error as above.

I have tried to reproduce the problem you are describing, and could not.  rm
works fine for me. :)


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