At 2025-10-15T19:40:13+0200, Bernhard Voelker wrote: > On 10/15/25 05:31, Collin Funk wrote: > > I think the original option is clear enough and is much shorter. If a > > user misses the description in --help and runs 'rm -rf /' they will be > > saved with a friendly warning message: > > > > $ rm -rf / > > rm: it is dangerous to operate recursively on '/' > > rm: use --no-preserve-root to override this failsafe > yes, that message is pretty clear IMO. If one doesn't take the time > to understand the --no-preserve-root option, then that person most > probably doesn't bother to use it. And then, the failsafe - which is > mandated by POSIX btw. - is guarding the user from killing the system. > > I can't think of a reason to use --no-preserve-root and to delete > everything under '/' other than for academic purposes or curiosity. > Still, if there is an even clearer phrasing for the above error > diagnostic or the --help output, then we'd welcome such change. Yet I > don't see that changing the option name would be necessary.
I second Bernhard, for what it's worth. My only gripe is a small one; I think the aforementioned output should be one message, not two. (I don't think diagnostic messages should worry about the terminal's line length. At most, usage and `--help` diagnostics should assume an 80-column device.) ...unless the first diagnostic is thrown even when `rm --no-preserve-root -rf /` is the command. (Which I am both too lazy and too cowardly to research.) But I suspect not because there'd be no point in issuing it to someone who claims to know what they're doing. Regards, Branden
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