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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Accidently deleted /usr contents. Post 302763393 by Neo on Wednesday 30th of January 2013 02:13:16 AM
Old 01-30-2013
Anyone who runs a script as root which deletes files is asking for trouble.

So, when the OP asks "what went wrong?", the answer is pretty straight forward.

The OP ran a script that removes files (as the superuser!) without testing the script first. It's that simple.

How do you test it?

Well, when the script runs, instead of removing the files, you simply write the files that would be deleted to a file. Then, you examine the file with the output of "files and directories that would have been deleted" and make sure the script does what you want. If all is OK, then enable the script to actually work (delete the files).

Never, ever, run a script that deletes files (especially as root) without testing first and confirming the script is working as intended.

Edit: Note that ZB recommends a similar approach in his reply above.
 

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echo(1B)					     SunOS/BSD Compatibility Package Commands						  echo(1B)

NAME
echo - echo arguments to standard output SYNOPSIS
/usr/ucb/echo [-n] [argument] DESCRIPTION
echo writes its arguments, separated by BLANKs and terminated by a NEWLINE, to the standard output. echo is useful for producing diagnostics in command files and for sending known data into a pipe, and for displaying the contents of envi- ronment variables. For example, you can use echo to determine how many subdirectories below the root directory (/) is your current directory, as follows: o echo your current-working-directory's full pathname o pipe the output through tr to translate the path's embedded slash-characters into space-characters o pipe that output through wc -w for a count of the names in your path. example% /usr/bin/echo "echo $PWD | tr '/' ' ' | wc -w" See tr(1) and wc(1) for their functionality. The shells csh(1), ksh(1), and sh(1), each have an echo built-in command, which, by default, will have precedence, and will be invoked if the user calls echo without a full pathname. /usr/ucb/echo and csh's echo() have an -n option, but do not understand back-slashed escape characters. sh's echo(), ksh's echo(), and /usr/bin/echo, on the other hand, understand the black-slashed escape characters, and ksh's echo() also understands a as the audible bell character; however, these commands do not have an -n option. OPTIONS
-n Do not add the NEWLINE to the output. ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes: +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Availability |SUNWscpu | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ SEE ALSO
csh(1), echo(1), ksh(1), sh(1), tr(1), wc(1), attributes(5) NOTES
The -n option is a transition aid for BSD applications, and may not be supported in future releases. SunOS 5.10 3 Aug 1994 echo(1B)
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