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From: Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell
Subject: Re: Problem with 'rm -i' in ksh
Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2025 23:14:42 -0800
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Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de> writes:
> On 2025-01-11, Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>   rm -i "${!a_set[@]}"
>> =>
>> rm: remove regular file `rmd2'? rm: remove regular file `rmd4'? rm:
>> remove regular file `rmd9 2'? rm: remove regular file `rmd9 3'?
>
> Well, that's what you get when you redirect stdin to null:
>
> $ rm -i *
> remove a? n
> remove b? n
> remove c? n
> $ rm -i * </dev/null
> remove a? remove b? remove c? $

Which raises the question of what rm -i *should* do if stdin isn't
a tty.

POSIX specifically says that "rm shall write a prompt to standard
error and read a line from the standard input".

Changing the current behavior would (a) violate POSIX, and (b) break
usages like "yes | some_script", where "some_script" invokes rm -i.
The current behavior is well defined, even if it may not be ideal.

I can see the usefulness of, for example, bailing out with an error
message if stdin is not a tty or repeating the prompt if the input is
neither 'y' nor 'n' (or whatever the locale-specific equivalents are),
but if you want that you can program it yourself (or add it as a
non-standard option to rm).

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com
void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */