In the few years of me exclusively using the command line to manage files, even having rm aliased to rm -rf, and at some point to sudo rm -rf, out of convenience, I think it has happened thrice that I deleted the wrong file, and twice I was able to restore it with (hourly) backups. The third time, it was a minecraft world which I had created to test some mods and the server start script, and I had excluded it from backups because my ~/games dir is usually only used by steam.
Here’s a rule I learned the hard way a few decades ago:
I’m a big fan of starting the command with a
#, then removing it once I’m happy with the command to defend against accidentally hitting enterPutting
~next to the enter key on keyboards (at least UK ones) was an evil villain level decisionWhen I’m unsure, I
ls <the-glob>, chek, then replacelswithrm.This. When the ls command works, hit ctrl-a, meta-d, type rm, enter.
Oh, didn’t knew about
Alt d. ThxI never thought of doing that in 40 years. It’s a great idea actually. Thanks!
Or have backups (lol)
AND have backups.
In the few years of me exclusively using the command line to manage files, even having rm aliased to rm -rf, and at some point to sudo rm -rf, out of convenience, I think it has happened thrice that I deleted the wrong file, and twice I was able to restore it with (hourly) backups. The third time, it was a minecraft world which I had created to test some mods and the server start script, and I had excluded it from backups because my ~/games dir is usually only used by steam.
Also, triple-check which machine you’re actually logged into.
-idoesn’t exist?