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Re: Bug in rm -r with locked files
- From: Gael Mulat <Gael dot Mulat at polyspace dot com>
- To: cygwin at cygwin dot com
- Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 10:05:46 +0100
- Subject: Re: Bug in rm -r with locked files
- Organization: PolySpace Technologies
- References: <3E2D33FA.5090200@polyspace.com>
Gael Mulat wrote:
Hi,
This is a bug report about rm (package fileutils, version 4.1-1) on
W2K.
Test case: take 2 cygwin shells.
shell 1:
mkdir /tmp/directory
vi /tmp/directory/file
shell 2:
/bin/rm -rf /tmp/directory
The shell2 doesn't manage to remove the directory and goes into an
infinite loop, taking 100% of the CPU.
All is then OK if we go out of vi in the shell1.
Doing the same thing (deleting the directory) directly in Windows
produces an error message: "cannot delete directory: Access is denied.
The source file may be in use" and we can notice in the directory a
file named .file.swp that is also visible under Cygwin with ls -la.
The example I have just given uses vi, but it is the same with all
processes that open the file, as W2K puts a lock on it.
Gael Mulat
OK. If I summurize all that has been said, this problem is
well-known but has no solution in a near future.
But a workaround would be very useful for people (me and Brian
Kelly, for instance) who use plenty of rm -rf in cross-platform shell
scripts.
Thanks to Shankar Unni, I have mine: I didn't noticed that only rm
-rf had the trouble, and not rm -r.
So my workaround will be to replace all the '/bin/rm -rf dir' by
'chmod -R +w dir; /bin/rm -r dir'. The semantic is not exactly the same
(especially on write-protected directories), but that will allow my
scripts to work well...
Thanks everybody.
Gael.
--
Gael Mulat
http://www.polyspace.com
Phone: +33 (0)4 56 38 16 06
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