Re: major blunders

From: Connor McDonald <mcdonald.connor_at_gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2009 11:58:02 +0800
Message-ID: <5e3048620910092058p5788cd6aq3b69acf745799a52_at_mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 2:19 AM, Jared Still <jkstill_at_gmail.com> wrote:

> Every little bit helps.
> Using rm * has already been dismissed as a bad idea,
> so it would seem that rm somedir/* would also be a questionable
> practice.
>
> If there's a way to screw up, all of will find it at some point.
>
> The idea is to mitigate the risk as much as possible.
>
>
> Jared Still
> Certifiable Oracle DBA and Part Time Perl Evangelist
> Oracle Blog: http://jkstill.blogspot.com
> Home Page: http://jaredstill.com
>
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 10:57 AM, Aaron Leonard <aachleon_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I'd be very wary of relying on that. It doesn't account for when you are
>> not in the directory which contain the files your are deleting.
>>
>> oracle:~/adl/tmp> for i in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7; do echo 1 > file$i; done
>> oracle:~/adl/tmp> touch -- -i
>> oracle:~/adl/tmp> rm -f *
>> rm: remove regular file `file1'?
>> oracle:~/adl/tmp> rm -f *
>> rm: remove regular file `file1'? n
>> rm: remove regular file `file2'? n
>> rm: remove regular file `file3'? n
>> rm: remove regular file `file4'? n
>> rm: remove regular file `file5'? n
>> rm: remove regular file `file6'? n
>> rm: remove regular file `file7'? n
>> oracle:~/adl/tmp> n
>> bash: n: command not found
>> oracle:~/adl/tmp> cd ..
>> oracle:~/adl> rm -f tmp/*
>> oracle:~/adl> ls -l tmp
>> total 0
>> oracle:~/adl>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 12:44 PM, Jared Still <jkstill_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 10:16 AM, Fmhabash <fmhabash_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> If I may add ...
>>>> - I altered behavior of 'rm' cmd forcing it to be interactive needing
>>>> user confirmation. Scripts coded to use non-interactive version.
>>>>
>>>
>>> A trick to avoid accidentally deleting files you would rather keep.
>>>
>>> Create a file called '-i' in key directories. This will force rm -f to
>>> go into interactive
>>> mode, as the '-i' filename is interpreted as an argument.
>>>
>>> Create '-i' file: touch -- -i
>>>
>>> The double dash is used to tell rm (or any other *nix command) that the
>>> following stuff on the command line is not a command line option.
>>>
>>> Remove the file: rm -- -i
>>>
>>> Create a tmp directory, copy a few files into it, and try it.
>>>
>>> It has saved me at least once.
>>>
>>>
>>> Jared Still
>>> Certifiable Oracle DBA and Part Time Perl Evangelist
>>> Oracle Blog: http://jkstill.blogspot.com
>>> Home Page: http://jaredstill.com
>>>
>>>
>>
>

I've already posted this in the past, but I love the approach taken at a client I once worked at. All production servers had a naming scheme of: bfc"digits"
When I asked what "bfc" stood for... it was "be f...ing careful". They had adopted it in all seriousness because it

1. made you pause for a chuckle every time you saw it
2. that pause impressed the seriousness of the situation to you

-- 
Connor McDonald
===========================
email: connor_mcdonald_at_yahoo.com
web:   http://www.oracledba.co.uk

"Semper in excremento, sole profundum qui variat"

--
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l

Received on Fri Oct 09 2009 - 22:58:02 CDT