We all know about using
ls
before a wildcarded
rm
to make sure that we're only deleting what we want. But that doesn't really solve the problem: you can type
ls a*
and then mistakenly type
rm s*
with bad consequences - it's just a minor slip of your finger. But what will always work, if you're a
csh
or
bash
user, is:
%ls a*
a1 a2 a3 %rm !$
(
ls -d a*
(
16.8
)
will make less output if any subdirectory names match the wildcard.)
Using the history mechanism to grab the previous command's arguments is a good way to prevent mistakes.
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