What does "rm -rf" on it's own do?

[Red Squirrel]

I accidentally did "rm -rf & /folder &" when what I really want to do "rm -rf /folder &"

So naturally, "rm -rf" got executed and it just returned to a prompt right away. What happened, what did it delete, did it delete anything at all? Was a stupid mistake on my part, I always double check the path when running that command.

 

[Aluvus]

On my Ubuntu box, running rm -rf without the (mandatory) file parameter just returns without doing anything.

 

[Red Squirrel]

That's what it did for me as well. I was just scared that maybe it did do something. Like maybe it defaults to a certain folder. I can't find anything missing so far though, so my hunch is that it did not touch anything.

 

[Crusty]

That's what it did for me as well. I was just scared that maybe it did do something. Like maybe it defaults to a certain folder. I can't find anything missing so far though, so my hunch is that it did not touch anything.

That would be the most idiotic design decision ever. If it did default to something, the man page would certainly say so.

 

[ViviTheMage]

just returns in CentOS 6 ... that is what I would expect too.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Good to know then, so nothing got deleted.

 

[Blades]

Could just be a side effect of -f..
-f, --force ignore nonexistent files, never prompt

It just did as it said it would.. 🙂