Bug 326927 – rm -rf current directory does nothing

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED INVALID

[Description Joel Koglin 2010-07-04 22:28:24 UTC]

rm -rf the directory you are in does not throw and error or remove the directory.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. rm -rf `pwd`

Actual Results:  
nothing, the directory is not removed, no error is thrown, you are on a new line in your shell

Expected Results:  
an error is thrown or the directory is removed

[Comment 1 Jeroen Roovers (RETIRED) 2010-07-05 23:10:43 UTC]

Works for me:

jeroen@astrid ~ $ mkdir test
jeroen@astrid ~ $ cd test
jeroen@astrid ~/test $ ls -ld
drwxr-xr-x 2 jeroen users 4096 Jul  6 01:06 .
jeroen@astrid ~/test $ rm -rf . || echo beep
rm: cannot remove directory: `.'
beep
jeroen@astrid ~/test $ rm -rf `pwd` || echo beep
jeroen@astrid ~/test $ ls -ld
drwxr-xr-x 0 jeroen users 0 Jul  6 01:06 .
jeroen@astrid ~/test $ cd - && cd -
/home/jeroen
bash: cd: /home/jeroen/test: No such file or directory

It successfully removes the directory, so it doesn't need to report anything to stdout, and then exits with the satisfaction of a job well done.

You then find yourself without solid footing, what with a non-existent CWD and all, so it's the *next* command that is likely to fail, not rm.