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Aucbvax.4104 fa.unix-wizards utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!network Tue Sep 29 12:47:18 1981 Production UNIX

You complained about "drivel" concerning safe rm's. Obviously we have very different jobs. My job is to make UNIX look like a "normal production system" without taking away from its power and beauty. One thing I try to do is to keep users from hurting themselves, especially when it takes my time to get them back on their feet. And retrieving accidently removed files is a pain. (Even with a vastly improved backup system over dump/restor.) Most users know they've goofed as soon as they hit that carriage return (especially if it was an "rm *"), so why not make it easy for them to get it back themselves? Now that we have sufficient disk space, I'm changing rm (and the MH equivalent rmm) to move the file name to .,name (so it won't show up or be confused with meaningfule dot-files). They will be picked up by the backup system each day then deleted (REALLY removed). A new command "del" will really delete - useful, and good for confident users.

Maybe production UNIX people don't belong on this list, but I find it useful. The problems of making UNIX reliable are many and I need all the help I can get.

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