This is a good quote :)

[notfred]

Just don't create a file called -rf.
-- Larry Wall

 

[Evadman]

Lol. Nice.

 

[SinNisTeR]

snort

 

[silverpig]

Haha, not bad.

*wonders how many people are gonna fake knowing what that joke means*

 

[chiwawa626]

can i be the first to say wtF?

 

[AreaCode707]

<< Haha, not bad.

*wonders how many people are gonna fake knowing what that joke means* >>



Not me. What does it mean?

 

[Zim Hosein]

<< can i be the first to say wtF? >>


You beat me to it chiwawa626, all I can add is

 

[Entity]

<< Not me. What does it mean? >>


Stupid *nix geeky joke.

"rm" is for removing files; if you tried to remove a file named "-rf" you would remove everything recursively without it asking you to confirm the removal...

-r = recursive
-f = force

Rob

 

[chiwawa626]

i think its a coding joke?

 

[fr]

what's it good at?

 

[b0mbrman]

<< Just don't create a file called -rf.
-- Larry Wall >>


Well duh

 

[AreaCode707]

<<

<< Not me. What does it mean? >>


Stupid *nix geeky joke.

"rm" is for removing files; if you tried to remove a file named "-rf" you would remove everything recursively without it asking you to confirm the removal...

-r = recursive
-f = force

Rob >>



*Me bows to the nice Elite for kindly explaining to a sad non-geek*

 

[silverpig]

The delete command in linux is rm
If you want to delete a folder and all it's contents, you use the -r switch... "rm -r /folder/"
If you want to forcibly delete a file (ie no warnings or errors), you use the -f switch... "rm -f pr0n.jpg"
Combining these, you delete a folder and everything in it without any warnings... "rm -rf /pr0nfolder/"

The mount point for the linux filesystem is "/". That means that every drive, file, folder, everything, is under /

The command "rm -rf /" is about the worst thing you can do to a linux system. It'll delete everything every drive attached to the computer, locally, and externally.

Say you created a file called -rf and you wanted to delete it. You'd type "rm -rf"

 

[Evadman]

Only for those with root access silverPig

Got Root?

 

[silverpig]

Well yeah... But then again, anyone who'd create a file called -rf would probably always be logging in as root cause they'd be a newb

 

[bizmark]

A bit more in-depth explanation:

It's a linux/UNIX joke.

"rm" is the linux equivalent of "del" (if you're familiar with DOS). So if you created a file called -rf, and you wanted to delete it, you'd type "remove -rf".

Except that the modifiers -r and -f mean the following:

-r: delete everything in this directory and in every directory under this one
-f: delete everything without asking me to confirm it

So if you ever wanted to get rid of the file, you couldn't delete it without deleting everything else in the directory, including any subdirectories.

Sorry, but even as someone who knows what the joke means, I find it kind of lame.....

edit: oops, looks like silverpig preempted me. And I didn't notice till now. oh well

 

[silverpig]

Hmmm, I wonder if it'd actually default to reading -rf as the switches, or if it'd view -rf as the file first?

I guess a get around would be to rm -rf -rf it...