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I need to delete all files/dirs named .svn using rm on cgywin 

drwxr-xr-x    6      4096 Oct 26 15:33 .svn

$ rm -d .svn
rm: cannot unlink `.svn': Not owner
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2 Answers

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If you are the adminsitrator on your machine, ownership is a concept that shouldn't concern you much.

Do chmod u+w .svn, then try your remove again.

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not sure that'll work on cygwin. may need cacls (if administrator) to get permissions on the file. – quack quixote Oct 27 '09 at 5:18
@~quack. Thanks - You may be right - I think there is a dependency with the CYGWIN environment variable (cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using-cygwinenv.html) I may have forgotten about. – DaveParillo Oct 27 '09 at 22:56
The CYGWIN variable needs to include a setting for ntea (NT Extended Attributes). This should be done in the file cygnus.bat. Add the following line in the file: export CYGWIN=ntea – DaveParillo Oct 27 '09 at 23:01
good find, but actually i think you want ntsec not ntea (same link, further down the page), to get real permissions instead of faked. more here: cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/ntsec.html ... – quack quixote Oct 28 '09 at 4:53
Good catch. Thank's for keeping me honest! – DaveParillo Oct 28 '09 at 15:10
up vote 0 down vote

super-user (root) is the only account able to use rm -d flag

From the rm man page 

-d, --directory

      unlink FILE, even if it is  a  non-empty  directory  (super-user
      only; this works only if your system supports ‘unlink’ for 
          nonempty directories)

You will need to su root or something similar before using rm -d

Have you tried rm -rf /full/path/to/dir or (if empty) rmdir /full/path/to/dir ?

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