/home/karl

Rei Shinozuka shino at panix.com
Wed May 12 00:00:20 UTC 2010


On 05/11/2010 07:42 PM, terry wrote:
>
>> $ sudo rm -R *
>>
>>      
> -------->  what does ' * ' mean .... yes? i didn't see it in man rm.  -r
> ,-R ,---recursive , all mean the same?
>    
>
The * is UNIX shell file glob pattern, and not part of the "rm" command 
at all.  rm will only see a list of files.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glob_(programming)

The shell expands the glob pattern into some number of filenames 
depending on which files match the pattern relative to your working 
directory.

"echo *" will echo the files which match the glob pattern.

-rei





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