how to make "rm" move files to a trash folder... [SOLVED]

[randal1]

Hi All,

I would like to make the rm command move "deleted" files to a trash folder instead of wiping them off disk. Similar to how a file delete in KDE works for example.

Any ideas?

Many thanks

[lagalopex]

My first hit by searching portage... app-misc/perltrash

[ciaranm]

I would like to make the rm command move "deleted" files to a trash folder instead of wiping them off disk. Similar to how a file delete in KDE works for example.

That's a very bad idea -- even worse than that alias rm="rm -i" thing that some people use.

As soon as you move onto a box that doesn't do this, you're going to rely upon being able to recover from mistakes and find yourself with lots of deleted things that you can't get back.

[arghnoname]

I don't know if this is a great idea, but the easiest thing would be to create ~/bin, make sure it's at the front of your $PATH
in ~/.bash_profile

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export PATH=~/bin:${PATH}

and create a perl, python, c, shell...whatever sort of script called rm and make it u+x in that ~/bin file.

~/bin/rm

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#!/bin/bash
#write script here that does what you want. for a poor (but mostly working) example of rm emulation...
mv "$@" ~/.shtrash/

[zAfi]

ciaranm is right! you shouldn't change the rm behaviour!!!!
Instead, you could for example make a little script called _del_ that does exactly what you need. (moving the file to a destination/trash-folder) like arghononame suggested.

[PaulBredbury]

For a bit of light amusement, there's a section on the joys and pitfalls of rm in the Unix-Hater's Handbook

[Conan]

The most implemented way is to utilize libtrash. I believe its in portage but cannot check right now. libtrash wraps glibc calls in order to prevent things from being deleted. Note what ciaran said is something to keep in mind, but it's all up to you.

[randal1]

Hi,

Thank you for all your replies...I have taken these into consideration and found a result I am happy with. I have created a bash script called 'del' under /usr/local/bin that moves the files given to Kde's Trash...

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#!/bin/sh
kfmclient move "$@" trash:/

This means I won't get confused with 'rm' when on other peoples computers and I can still get the files back if I decide that I want them. As I work with two users, personal and root, I created a link to root's trash can from my personal kde desktop.

Thank you