Git repos have lots of write protected files in the .git directory, sometimes hundreds, and the default rm my_project_managed_by_git will prompt before deleting each write protected file. So, to actually delete my project I have to do rm -rf my_project_managed_by_git.

Using rm -rf scares me. Is there a reasonable way to delete git repos without it?

  • Pika
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    5 months ago

    honestly I don’t think there is a better way, like others have said you can use a trash program or you can chmod the git directory before deleting but, I would recommend against the comments saying alias the command, that can lead to even bigger problems if you typo thr alias or mess up in the script. rf can’t break anything unless you say the wrong directory which would be the same with aliases anyway,

    My recommendation out of them all would be using a trash program to move it to the trash that way if you do screw up the location you have a way to restore it otherwise you could make a script to list the files affected using ls and then prompt a yes/no prompt using read before doing the rm script, but that’s something you definitely want to test in a sandbox or user restricted environment if you’re not used to scripting in case something breaks