How can I prevent accidental execution of the rm -r *command?

Question

Occasionally I use command to delete some files. For example, the name might start with 'a', so I'll delete with the command rm -r a*, but I don't want to remove some other directory by accident. How can I lock a directory to prevent deletion by rm -r ?

Answer 1

You could alias the rm command to rm -i in your shell, so it will ask your confirmation for each file.

However, some consider this to be harmful. See alias rm=“rm -i” considered harmful? on Superuser.com

Other thoughts are in How do I prevent accidental rm -rf /?* on StackOverflow.com.

Answer 2

The best advice is to grow to fear and respect the 'rm -r' or 'rm -rf' commands enough that, when you type them, you stop yourself and proceed slowly and with caution (reading over the command carefully a few times). The commands are useful and sometimes need to be used - but it's not a good idea to trick the system into saving you from this type of mistake; it's not a good idea to grow accustomed to such workarounds---consider building good habits that can be carried from machine to machine.

Answer 3

If you are trying to selectively remove items, you can use find .

find . -name "a*" \! -type d -delete

You can check what you are deleting by running:

find . -name "a*" \! -type d -print

For example, create a some directories and files:

mkdir -p testDir/a/b 
cd testDir
touch apple.txt banana.txt ant.tx a/antelope.txt a/bus.txt a/b/apostrophe.txt a/b/bug.txt

To see the files and directories:

find . -name "*" -print

returns:

.
./a
./a/antelope.txt
./a/b
./a/b/apostrophe.txt
./a/bus.txt
./ant.tx
./apple.txt
./banana.txt

To verify what is being deleted:

find . -name "a*" \! -type d -print

returns:

./a/antelope.txt
./a/b/apostrophe.txt
./ant.tx
./apple.txt

To delete the files:

find . -name "a*" \! -type d -delete

To verify that only a* files have been delete:

find . -name "*" -print

returns:

.
./a
./a/b
./a/bus.txt
./banana.txt

Answer 4

In addition to the other answers here, I recommend that you use tab completion more and globbing less. From your question, it appears that you're trying to delete a single file but don't want to type the full name. In that case, instead of * you should hit Tab. Tab completion is much safer.

If you actually do intend to delete multiple files whose name matches a glob, the best way, as already pointed out, is to think twice before hitting enter. In addition, you can gain a lot of peace of mind if you use a backup solution that backs up all changes as you make them so you can always restore any mistake without risk of data loss.