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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting How to safely rm/mv files/directory Post 302556218 by newbie_01 on Saturday 17th of September 2011 07:35:00 AM
Old 09-17-2011
Data How to safely rm/mv files/directory

Hi all,

Am writing a script that does a rm/mv if a file exist, however, in one scenario, one of the variables which is supposed to a variable for a directory is undefined/blank so instead of the variable resolving to /tmp/logfile.dmp, it resolves instead to / so the rm translates to a rm / instead of rm /tmp/logfile.dmp.

Luckily I guess, the rm fails because / is a directory. In the same instance, a similar thing happen to one of the mv command, i.e. it translates to mv /, and luckily the mv gives Device or resource busy.

To avoid really causing a problem, I temporarily disabled all rm and mv in my script.

Can anyone please advise if there is a safe way to run a rm or mv to avoid removing /mv'ing the wrong file or there is no such way or doing so and I will just have to make sure that whatever I am trying to remove or mv resolves to the right file that I want to remove?

Any advise much appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 

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service(8)						      System Manager's Manual							service(8)

NAME
service - run a System V init script SYNOPSIS
service SCRIPT COMMAND [OPTIONS] service --status-all service --help | -h | --version DESCRIPTION
service runs a System V init script in as predictable environment as possible, removing most environment variables and with current working directory set to /. The SCRIPT parameter specifies a System V init script, located in /etc/init.d/SCRIPT. The supported values of COMMAND depend on the invoked script, service passes COMMAND and OPTIONS it to the init script unmodified. All scripts should support at least the start and stop commands. As a special case, if COMMAND is --full-restart, the script is run twice, first with the stop command, then with the start command. service --status-all runs all init scripts, in alphabetical order, with the status command. If the init script file does not exist, the script tries to use legacy actions. If there is no suitable legacy action found and COMMAND is one of actions specified in LSB Core Specification, input is redirected to the systemctl. Otherwise the command fails with return code 2. FILES
/etc/init.d The directory containing System V init scripts. ENVIRONMENT
LANG, TERM The only environment variables passed to the init scripts. SEE ALSO
chkconfig(8), ntsysv(8), systemd(1), systemctl(8), systemd.service(5) Jan 2006 service(8)
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