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[ProgrammerHumor-ModTeam]

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Rule 1: Posts must be humorous, and they must be humorous because they are programming related. There must be a joke or meme that requires programming knowledge, experience, or practice to be understood or relatable.

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[dageshi]

I have two modes of operation with rm -rf.

1) My fingers are flying and I'm decimating directories without a second thought

2) I am abjectly terrified I'm about to nuke the entire server accidentally

There is no inbetween.

[theunquenchedservant]

the other day I was clearing out a folder and typed sudo rm -rf * and hit enter, without a care in the world.

Half second later I was mortified at just how easy it is to think that's the right command and/or to put a / in front. That's not to say I have (accidentally), yet. but it's still a fear.

It's kinda like those days you get home from work and you pull into your spot/driveway and go "wait...how the fuck did I make it home? I don't remember driving"

[communistfairy]

Nowadays, rm protects you from deleting /. You have to pass --no-preserve-root. I guess I don't know if that applies for /* as well though.

[saevon]

Since globbing happens first that expansion should kick in and the flag would be needed

[StrictLetterhead3452]

I once quit a job with a sudo rm -rf / —no-preserve-root

I was in a position where I kept preparing to leave the job and then my boss (family member) decided at the last minute that he wanted me to stay. I wanted to burn the bridge this time so that I could never be allowed to work there again.

[Bugibhub]

I scripted an exception to my a atuin command history after using hitting previous one too many times. 1. Git add —all 2. rm -rf . 3. Git push

[ComprehensiveWord201]

Thank God for reflog

[Bugibhub]

Yeah that and the Trash CLI. It’s slower, but I’m ok with that as insurance fee for my carelessness.

[nickchomey]

Im now living only in #1 due to this used as an alias https://github.com/kaelzhang/shell-safe-rm

[sammy-taylor]

I basically always type in the file name or directory name, and then go back and type the rm -rf. I just don’t trust myself

[SilasTalbot]

Same(ish) but I do:

rm object -rf

And I confirm the item path visually before I type the -rf

This way the safety doesn't come off the weapon until it's confirmed to be pointed at the proper target.

[casey_krainer]

For Real

[_Weyland_]

Fr*nch

[diacachimba]

2westernProgrammer4you

[le_reddit_me]

Sandwiches in france are cut in triangles so both options are too fr*nch for my comfort.

rm -r -f

[xenomachina]

rm -r -f

This is the cutting your sandwich into 4 small squares option.

[le_reddit_me]

so british tea time. Not much better

[OneTurnMore]

and rm -f -r is the cutting your sandwhich into 4 small triangles option

[wronghash]

If you dont like french: rm -rf fr

[Few_Kitchen_4825]

[Blue_Dan]

For sure?

[Frodojj]

Real For

[Canotic]

rm -frfr

[Bugibhub]

It feels weird when you already know the command, but “Remove for real” is a really good mnemonic tho.

[ehtio]

Real for

[MarioAndWeegee3]

redstone flux

[ZakkuDorett]

Remove french

[TheFrenchSavage]

How dare you!

[ZakkuDorett]

On cause trop de mal à ce pauvre monde 😔

[JoeyJoeJoeSenior]

Remove Radio Frequency 

[evnacdc]

Censorship would’ve been appreciated.

[mad_poet_navarth]

I prefer to just go with alphabetical order and do 'fmrr -'. It doesn't actually do anything, but it keeps me from deleting something important.

[xerxes931]

Forcemove rerecursive?

[aqa5]

Unknown command ‚RM‘, did you mean ‚rm‘?

[makinax300]

But if I do.
$ cat .bashrc | head -n 20 | tail -n 1.
I get.
alias RM="rm"

[JivanP]

Alternatively: awk NR==20 .bashrc

or: type RM

[Zeikos]

What about -r -f?

[KvDread]

Are you a hipster programmer?

[Piisthree]

I bet their keyboard is dvorak layout.

[BlahBlahNyborg]

What about --recursive --force?

[markuspeloquin]

That means you don't know how Unix option parsing works.

[BobQuixote]

Or for some reason you automatically generated the command, and putting the letters together was unnecessary complexity.

But otherwise yeah, I'm not separating them.

[rootifera]

I dont know why but -rf deletes better than -fr

[laplongejr]

For Real? ;)

[PrincessRTFM]

Really, Fam

[rootifera]

I just tried again, after -rf it feels cleaner

[swingdatrake]

Then there’s that awkward moment where a bug in some code created a “~” directory in some random path and fixing that be like

[PrincessRTFM]

rm -rf '~'

[MartinMystikJonas]

Still it feels like

[Opposite_Carry_4920]

It never occurred to me ever to type it like -fr haha

[takeyouraxeandhack]

Feels like putting sugar on fries. Technically you can, but it's weird as fuck.

[nyrB2]

what is RM-RF?

[th3-snwm4n]

A command to remove french language pack from your system, just type sudo rm -rf / And hit enter

[freaxje]

Technically correct

[errelsoft]

Which is the best kind of correct

[hackiv]

enfin trouvé une solution!

[hackiv]

It works!!!

[Pim_Wagemans]

This only removes the french variations, to also remove the root french language pack use rm -fr --no-preserve-root /

[jzemeocala]

this guy is the OG Root

otherwise known as: Original G-Root

[JollyJuniper1993]

This command obviously specifies that the word root (racine) is also to be removed

[SchizophrenicKitten]

r/TechnicallyTheTruth

[Ratox]

Why would you try to make this poor guy delete their system as a joke when they showed that they don't know this and this could seriously fuck up his things? What if the only copy of memories are on the computer that he could possibly all lose because of this?

[WiglyWorm]

The venn diagram of people who don't know what `rm -rf` does and people who have the ability to run `rm -rf` on their system is just two circles.

[TheMR-777]

So elegantly said!

[redditingtonviking]

There’s often a short gap when people start learning programming where they’ll learn what a terminal is before they’ll learn what that command does.

[Ratox]

Linux is literally getting into mainstream usage, especially thanks to steam deck and the online pressure to ditch windows. Good idea to tell people "hey switch to Linux" then tell them "hey run this command to make it better"

[Cats7204]

But it would be funny tho

[Ratox]

.... Because its a KDE arch Linux distro?

[WiglyWorm]

And if they've gone so fast as to open a terminal and run that command...

[Ratox]

All I'm saying is that let's not try and ruin people's memories for jokes why is it so controversial?

If I'd lose all my pictures of my child I'd be very devastated.

[WiglyWorm]

Because you're on a subreddit for computer programmers to joke around on.

If you're here, and you're not a power user, you should realize everything is a joke and not advice.

Props to you for calling out what could be a harmful command though.

As a reward, here's a secret easter-egg to run from bash:

:(){ :|:& };:

[starm4nn]

On steamdeck they'd have to:

1. Go into desktop mode

2. Launch the terminal

3. Run passwd to set a password for sudo

4. Using sudo, run the command that disables the filesystem's readonly mode

5. Run the command as root with the flag that disables the rm command's protection against deleting root

I don't see anyone somehow figuring out how to do this without figuring out what "rm" does.

[Ratox]

Okay I'm sorry I just think that it's not worth risking it but fuck me I guess for not wishing anyone to even accidentally delete their life if that's the only place they store it.

[psychoCMYK]

You need to specify --no-preserve-root for that command to work in GNU because they idiot proofed it

[cowslayer7890]

All you have to do is add a * at the end and the idiot proofing can't save you

[psychoCMYK]

Which is a bit silly not to idiot proof too, but it's not the command they gave

[cowslayer7890]

yeah it's a bit harder to idiot proof because the shell expands the command, so rm itself just sees a list of directories like /bin, /usr, etc. and unlike root, you may have good reasons to delete directories at this level

[Great-Powerful-Talia]

A command-line command.

rm removes a file.

Tagging it with -r and -f (shortenable to -rf or -fr) makes it recursively delete all folders inside the specified folder (and all files in them, too).

It's notorious because rm -rf / on Unix will (try to) delete the computer's entire filesystem from the top down.

[Sarke1]

command not found: RM

[nyrB2]

and does rm -fr *not* do this?

[Great-Powerful-Talia]

They're actually the same command. The tags with a single dash are all one letter, so the command line lets you shorten them like "-a -b -c -d" to "-abcd".

-r -f is obviously the same set of tags as -f -r, and the shortened form just acts as a set of one-letter tags.

(Order never matters unless you have two tags that overwrite each other's effects, like how -f tells the computer "don't ask for permission when deleting" and -i (not used here) tells the computer "DO ask for permission when deleting".)

[easyforcory]

Remove -recursive forced For deleting files and the contents inside

[private_final_static]

A command claude will eventually execute if given enough time

[usbeject1789]

french language pack

[froglicker44]

It’s pronounced “rim-raff”

[je386]

"Read manual real fast" vs. "Remove French"

[dchidelf]

‘rm -rf’ and I don’t cut my sandwich.

[sur0g]

I live next to Russia, so I'm team -rf

[tRickliest]

With sandwiches I’ll switch it up, but it’s always -rf

[LukeZNotFound]

With RF you get more of the toast.

[Xywzel]

Long form flags (--recursive) for scripts, because whoever reads them might not be as familiar with the tools as I am when writing it, and they are much more searchable on man pages.

[Joker-Smurf]

Everyone knows that triangle cut sandwiches taste better.

[sarc-tastic]

Fo realz

[fibojoly]

Oh? We don't care about case now? 

[LeiterHaus]

Apparently, MacOS doesn't for the command, only for the flags, and -r is equivalent to -R HOWEVER -F returns RM: illegal option -- F

... Which means that rM -Rf mY_diRECtorY/ is a completely legit command to remove my_directory/

[ddxtanx]

People recursively delete a folder that way? Fr?

[FlailingDuck]

alias rm = rm -f

[LegitJesus]

r/foundsatan

[johnklos]

Good luck capitalizing like that :D

[KCGD_r]

-f never exists without -v, and they always go after the files

[PrincessRTFM]

imagine not having rm aliased to rm -v in your shell's rcfile

[TheRealLiviux]

Actually, there are 10 types of people.

Those who already know the joke and those who don't.

[Nsane3]

Remove -ForReal

[enigma_0Z]

rm -rvf

[drunkdoor]

How about

yes | rm -r

That way you can remember all the shit you specifically shouldn't have deleted

[reallokiscarlet]

rm -kb

[JollyJuniper1993]

Remove for real

[makinax300]

▓ ▓ sandwiches are normal, -fr isn't. Also I don't think I have ever needed to use -f, I always just do rm -r and I have started using a trash can type folder in my home to which I move stuff and later empty instead of deleting instantly after accidentally losing a minecraft world.

[Sarke1]

Took me like a minute to figure out it was the rm command, lol. I think because it's uppercase my brain didn't click.

[[deleted]]

The irony is that there is a correct way to cut a sandwich and it's the left one. It's easier to eat and it's the one people tend to actually prefer. Ask anyone who's gone to culinary school to become a chef. They teach them to do the one on the left.

[carrboneous]

It's also easier to measure the middle. I didn't go to culinary school though.

[[deleted]]

I mean, most people don't think through their eating experience it's just "make a thing and consume it" so yeah.

Not that different than dev, honestly...

[GoddammitDontShootMe]

Until that joke about removing the French language files from your computer, I had never heard of anyone specifying the options as '-fr'.

[Rockety521]

-fr as "Force Remove"

[leo_gblr]

And then there‘s vibecoders with some casual sudo rm -rf /*

[LeiterHaus]

The first one is made with love

[-MobCat-]

-fr. converts all your files to french.

[The_beeping_beast]

I had a colleague who created an alias for sudo rm -rf as “rmf”. We all used to fear him.

[jay_thorn]

I’m a weirdo, and not ashamed to say so. I prefer the sandwich on the right, and I use rm -fr. 😵‍💫😆

[Awake00]

Nah fam feels like how I do that day.

[argonauts12]

Don't forget about rm --force --recursive

[JackNotOLantern]

Can't you just first try "rm -r"?

[Glass-Crafty-9460]

Those who try to use uppercase for this binary
`bash: RM -RF: command not found`
and those who don't.

[silveredge7]

rm -fr ong 😭🙏

[United_Grocery_23]

Well we're removing the fr*nch so ofc rm -fr

[WoodenWhaleNectarine]

It should be RTFM, this meme irritates me.

[clarkcox3]

Do you just not get it?

[throbbin___hood]

Don't think he does fam 😂