rm -rf versus rm -r: What's the Difference?

• Suppose you have a directory to which you have no apparent permissions:

        $ mkdir -p /tmp/alpha/beta

        $ chmod 0000 /tmp/alpha/beta

        $ ls -l /tmp/alpha/
        total 4
        d--------- 2 jkeenan jkeenan 4096 Jul 20 12:22 beta

• QUIZ: If you call rm -r -- without -f -- what happens?

  • You will be prompted before descending into, or removing, a write-protected directory.

    • You will have to type y at each prompt to get the same results as you would with rm -rf.

        $ rm -r /tmp/alpha/beta
        rm: descend into write-protected directory '/tmp/alpha/beta'? y
        rm: remove write-protected directory '/tmp/alpha/beta'? y

        $ ls -l /tmp/alpha/
        total 0

• If you type n at any prompt, you won't get as much recursive deletion as you probably want.