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# 1  
Old 02-10-2009
Unix wildcard character question
1. Is . wildcard? , the documented wildcard are "*", "?", and "[]"

. seems mean everything, the follwing cmd will copy everything

Code:
 
cp -r /tmp/test1/.  /tmp/test2/

However it doesn't work for rm, why?

Code:
$ ls -a
.    ..   .a   .aa  aa   t2
$ rm -rf .
$ ls -a
.    ..   .a   .aa  aa   t2

2. How to delete everthing in current dir with single cmd?
if the dir has hidden files. i have run rm -rf * ;rm -rf .* to delete everything
# 2  
Old 02-10-2009
1. . is not a wildcard

ls -la . = ls -la `pwd`

2.

find . -type f -exec rm {} \; = find `pwd` -type f -exec rm {} \;

y delete all files whith this command
# 3  
Old 02-10-2009
Quote:
Originally Posted by taran
1. . is not a wildcard

ls -la . = ls -la `pwd`
ok, this explains "cp -r /tmp/test1/." can copy everything

Quote:
Originally Posted by taran
2.

find . -type f -exec rm {} \; = find `pwd` -type f -exec rm {} \;

y delete all files whith this command
this command is still complex, even more typing than (rm -rf .*;rm -rf *)

I am looking for a single cmd "rm -rf" followed by a wildcard expression, is it possible?
# 4  
Old 02-10-2009
You NEVER should do something like rm -rf *, it's too risky. If you want to delete all contents of a directory, delete that and recreate it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by honglus
Quote:
Originally Posted by taran
find . -type f -exec rm {} \; = find `pwd` -type f -exec rm {} \;
this command is still complex, even more typing than (rm -rf .*;rm -rf *)
Maybe, but it has the advantage of passing additional parameters for filtering, such as name, size, time, and owner.
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