Re: rm symlink removes the target

[Leonardo Milano]

Hi again

I have additional info on the report. 

> If I do "rm -i symbolic_link_name", it goes to the
> directory to which the symlink points to and asks
> me to delete each file.

The problem occurs _only_ if I end the symbolic name with
a trailing backslash "/". In this case, rm tries to
remove the directory to which "symbolic_link_name" points.
If I DO NOT add the trayling backslash, it removes the
link. If this is the expected behavior, I find it a little
dangerous, since a shell script trying to delete 
a symbolic linke may end up deleting a whole partition

Anyway, thanks a lot
-- Leo

> Dear fileutils maintainers
> 
> I recently upgraded my distro to Mandrake 9.0, which comes
> with fileutils-4.1.11-5mdk 
>  
> I systematically have a problem removing symbolic links
> If I do "rm -i symbolic_link_name", it goes to the
> directory to which the symlink points to and asks
> me to delete each file.
> 
> I understand from the docs that rm is still supposed to
> remove the link, not the target. 
> 
> Is that an unreported change in behavior or a bug ?.
> If it's a bug, I would be very happy to give you
> any more info as you need it
> 
> Many many thanks for suck wonderful utils
> -- leo
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------
>   Leonardo J. Milano
>   Bartol Research Institute, University of Delaware      
>   217 Sharp Lab., Newark, DE 19716, USA       
>   Tel: +1 302.831.1579  * address@hidden        
>   Fax: +1 302.831.1843  *  http://udel.edu/~lmilano/
> -----------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
>