> It's actually rm -rf /bin.
> Seems to be caused by the same reason as the famous Steam bug - using an undefined variable. Plus the default bash behavior that simply ignores the fact that it doesn't exist and treats it like an empty string.
> tl;dr flamebait: The Unix way™ of "everything is just text" strikes again. (EDIT: yes this a gross over-generalization)
source: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/610z2f/858521_...
In our capability-based shell scripting language Shill (shill-lang.org) for example, you could prevent this sort of bug by giving the script a capability for just the diaspora_home directory, and deriving the child directories from that capability. (Of course, you still need to make sure you pass in the right directory in the first place.)
That suggestion fails to grasp the basics of Unix shells however: parameter expansion as well as globbing is performed by the shell, rm "sees" nothing but fully-expanded paths.
https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/Trea...