UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

hi all,

i am just starting to learn about shell scripts, and i thought it would be cool if i could make a "paranoia" script that would erase certain directories on my system (but in the background so as to be relatively hidden). right now i am using one of my music folders for a test run (it's a copy; don't want to really lose my tunes!) because it is a very large directory (like 15GB). I was wondering, can i somehow use /dev/null for something like this? if i use

Code:

sudo rm -rf

^^^^^^(don't use unless you're SURE you want to delete the directory in question!!!)

on that directory i think it would probably take a while... i'd want the fastest way possible, so i thought /dev/null might be an option... just a thought. any ideas?

on a side note, i was messing around with the

Code:

shred

command, but it takes forever and wouldn't suit my needs

One idea to quickly get rid of some stuff is to configure a separate file system for your directory. Then you unmount it, newfs it, and remount it. Experts may be able to recover a lot of the data, but it's quite a chore.

i have experimented with that before, but i want all information deleted by this script to be useless afterwards... i realize things like this take time for the system to do, i am merely looking for the fastest (and most accurate) result.