[clug] Ever received a .dat file from an <other OS> user?

[Peter Barker]

On Sat, 16 Jan 2010, Anthony David wrote:

>> This is... somewhat unsafe, particularly when run by root.  I *think* I 
>> recall a shell trick to turn this into a safe operation, so you *don't* do 
>> something unfortunate to your system should those variables be empty.  Any 
>> takers?
> Hi Peter
>
> One way might be testing for non-zero length strings
>
> [ -n "$dir_i_do_not_want" ] && [ -n "$subdir_i_do_not_want" ] && rm -rf 
> $dir_i_do_not_want/$subdir_i_do_not_want

Yes, that certainly a safe way to handle the situation, and what I usually 
do.  Somewhat verbose, 'though!

Unfortunately, I'm really working on dim memories.  I *think* the trick 
was something like prepending a few magic characters to the 
path-to-be-deleted...

> Anthony

Thanks,
-- 
Peter Barker                          |   Programmer,Sysadmin,Geek.
pbarker at barker.dropbear.id.au	      |   You need a bigger hammer.
:: It's a hack! Expect underscores! - Nigel Williams