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?

  • @ButtonsOPEnglish
    -3•14 days ago

    Just checked my command history and I’ve run 60,000 commands on this computer without problem (and I have other computers). I guess people have different ideas of what “comfortable” means, but I think I consider myself comfortable with the command line.

    I have shot myself in the foot with rm -rf in the past though, and screwed up my computer so bad the easiest solution was to reinstall the OS from scratch. My important files are backed up, including most of my dotfiles, but being a bit too quick to type and run a rm -rf command has caused me needless hours of work in the past.

    I realized the main reason I have to use rm -rf is to remove git repos and so I thought I’d ask if anyone has a tip to avoid it. And I’ve found some good suggestions among the least upvoted comments.

    • @[email protected]
      2•14 days ago

      I’m the same as you! I recommend “trash-cli”, then you can undo if you mess something up. You can even set an alias to echo “wrong command” if you use ‘RM’.