In article <20060823230343.GA16062@panix.com>,
Thor Lancelot Simon  <tls@rek.tjls.com> wrote:
>On Wed, Aug 23, 2006 at 10:57:23AM -0700, Bill Studenmund wrote:
>> 
>> If I request -P, I don't want the file unlinked. There's something in its 
>> data that I don't want to have linger on the disk afterwards. Letting -f 
>> override this is unsafe; after the file is unlinked, there's no way I can 
>> ensure the file contents get overritten.
>
>In fact, I tend to think that, with -P, -f should cause rm to attempt to
>chmod the file so that it can be overwritten, then overwrite it, then
>unlink it if successful -- and, if any of this fails, immediately error
>out.

I think that this is too much magic. I would prefer that we error out
giving the user a proper error message.

>Bill i 100% right: -P should *never* unlink a file but leave the data
>in place in the disk blocks.

I totally agree.

christos