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Previous: 23.4 Answer "Yes" or "No" Forever with yesChapter 23
Removing Files
Next: 23.6 A Faster Way to Remove Files Interactively
 

23.5 Remove Some, Leave Some

Most people use rm -i (21.11) for safety: so they're always asked for confirmation before removing a particular file. Mike Loukides told me about another way he uses rm -i. When he has several files to remove, but the wildcards (1.16) would be too painful to type with a plain rm, Mike gives rm -i a bigger list of filenames and answers "n" to filenames he doesn't want deleted. For instance:

% ls
aberrant    abhorred    abnormal     abominate   acerbic
aberrate    abhorrent   abominable   absurd      acrimonious
    ...
% rm -i ab*
rm: remove aberrant (y/n)? y
rm: remove aberrate (y/n)? n
rm: remove abhorred (y/n)? y
rm: remove abhorrent (y/n)? n
    ...

- JP


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