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How to safely remove all files (including hidden files) from current directory (after cding to that directory)?

As far as I know, cd RELEVANT_DIR && rm * won't remove hidden files.

I would assume cd RELEVANT_DIR && rm -rf ./* is the right command but I might be wrong.

Update

I do want to remove directories (and possible symlinks and basically everything in the directory) as well.

cautionisadvised
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  • I'm pretty sure that question has been asked before. See [What's the fastest way to remove all files & subfolders in a directory?](//unix.stackexchange.com/a/277214) for an answer to your specific question. I'll try and find a closer duplicate. – Stéphane Chazelas Jun 11 '21 at 06:31
  • Have you considered using `find` with `-delete`? – FelixJN Jun 11 '21 at 08:19
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    Why would you use `rm -rf` for hidden files? Do you also want to remove directories? What does "safely" mean here? – terdon Jun 11 '21 at 08:26
  • @FelixJN after roaima's answer yes. – cautionisadvised Jun 11 '21 at 09:17
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    @terdon I understood `rm -rf` removes everything, including directories with the possible exception of hidden files. I do want to remove directories; about safely I am not sure myself, just something conventional. – cautionisadvised Jun 11 '21 at 09:18
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    Well, `-f` is as far from safe as it gets. To remove directories, you just need `-r`. See `man find`. The `-f` is to force remove even if the files are non-writeable by you. – terdon Jun 11 '21 at 09:20
  • Oh and @terdon one more thing, by safe I also meant "not very potentially confusing" which I think `rm *` can be, I mean just `rm /*` can possibly destory a system, just a "typo" and generally there are no warnings, as you know. – cautionisadvised Jun 11 '21 at 09:28
  • @cautionisadvised `rm /*` will do nothing unless you run it as root. And, even then, on most systems that will just remove a few symlinks that can easily be recreated. `rm -r /*` would be dangerous when run as root, yes. And there are some warnings, but using `-f` disables them which is why `-f` is not "safe" by any definition. – terdon Jun 11 '21 at 09:33

1 Answers1

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Since you've referenced rm -rf * I've assume you don't just mean that you want to delete files, but that you want to delete all content including directories.

With bash

cd "RELEVANT_DIR" && ( shopt -s dotglob; rm -r * )

Otherwise with POSIX tools

cd "RELEVANT_DIR" && (
    find . ! -type d -delete
    find . -depth -path './*' -type d -exec rmdir {} +
)

In this example omit the second find if you want to leave any directory structure intact.

terdon
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roaima
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  • Whatever method you use, try replacing `rm` with `ls` - this will give you some idea of the effect of your command. – Jeremy Boden Jun 11 '21 at 17:03
  • @JeremyBoden not quite. Consider a directory called `dir`. Now `rm -r dir` will delete `dir` as expected, but `ls dir` will list the _contents_ of `dir` rather than `dir` itself. (Consider also that `dir` might be one of the values expanded from the use of `*`.) A better approach is to prefix the command with `echo`, for example here `echo rm -r *` – roaima May 16 '23 at 13:36