Bash: Created a ~ (Tilde) in a directory by accident

Question

I'm a beginner to using bash on OSX, and I somehow created a ~ dir in a project subfolder. (It appears as a directory, rather than a symlink.)

Is there a safe way to get rid of this ~ directory instance without bash expanding the tilde wiping my local user directory?

This is a really goofy question, but it would be a huge help to figure out how to deal with this.

Solution:

I ended up using rm -rfi ./\~, which worked safely.

Thanks, everyone!

rm -r '~' should do. Or rm -r './~'. If you want to be really safe, run rm with the -i option (interactive) that will prompt you before erasing anything. E.g., rm -ri './~'.

axeoth · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-14 15:29:41Z

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Yes. Use:

rm -rf \~

(that is: tilda prefixed with a backslash)

But, to be really sure, place yourself in the parent directory of the tilda and type:

rm -rf ./\~

That way, you really specify: the tilde in the current directory

answered Dec 14 '12 at 15:29

axeoth
1462

1

Instead of \~ you can also say '~' (i.e., with single quotes). – bitmask Dec 14 '12 at 18:04

@bitmask: you are right – axeoth Dec 14 '12 at 18:17

Emil Vikström · Answer 2 · 2012-12-14 18:24:16Z

up vote 1 down vote

rmdir will only remove empty directories. That way you are really sure you won't lose anything important.

answered Dec 14 '12 at 18:24

Emil Vikström
345215

	Unless you pass `-r`, so will `rm`. – bitmask Dec 14 '12 at 18:33
	`rm` will not remove a directory at all without `-r`, which makes it a bad choice for this task. – Emil Vikström Dec 14 '12 at 18:47
	I cannot help but noticing that I was talking utter nonsense before and that you are absolutely right. Sorry for that (the nonsense talking, not the noticing, that is). – bitmask Dec 14 '12 at 20:37

migrated from stackoverflow.com Dec 15 '12 at 9:24