More on rm (or Oops I Didn t Really Mean That.)

More on rm (or "Oops! I Didn't Really Mean That.")

When you delete a file with Linux, it is gone. If you didn't really mean to delete (or rm) a file, it is time to find out if you have been keeping good backups. The other option is to check with the rm command before you delete a file. Instead of simply typing rm followed by the filename, try this:

 rm -i file_name1 file_name2 file_name3 

The -i option tells rm to work in interactive mode. For each of the three files in the example, rm will pause and ask if you really mean it:

 rm : remove 'file_name1'? 

If you like to be a bit wordier than that, you can also try

 rm --interactive file_name 

but that goes against the system administrator's first principle.

Of course, in following that principle, you could remove all the files starting with the word file by using the asterisk:

 rm  i file*