revDeleteFolder and Lessons Learned..

[Alex Tweedly]

Chipp Walters wrote:

> Hi Dave,
>
> Well, since I passed revDeleteFolder a single "/" and it tried to 
> delete (w/out being able to be interrupted) the *entire* hard disk, I 
> would say it's less dangerous to 'roll your own'. I would expect 
> revDeleteFolder to take as an argument a valid path, including drive 
> letter. For instance I would expect:
>
> revDeleteFolder "C:/"
>
> to delete the C drive. I don't know why just "/" does it and I'm 
> afraid to test it with a null, especially since it can't be 
> interrupted. Anything you roll on your own can be interrupted with a 
> control-period.
>
"/" works  because "/" is a valid directory specifier for Rev. You can do
    set the defaultFolder to "/"
and it does; you don't need a drive specifier.
Come to think of it, you can do it in a Windows shell (or whatever a DOS 
box is called these days) - "cd \"  works.

> The non-interruptibility of the command is a huge issue, IMO, and one 
> I'm not willing to take any more chances on. I haven't looked at the 
> code, but as Xavier mentioned, it seems like it should be an engine 
> level issue, not a shell call. You are certainly welcome to use it to 
> your hearts content-- I won't be. Once burned, twice shy.

Being interruptible would help - but it can be hard to interrupt 
scripts; sometimes takes me repeated hits on ctrl-. for up to 10 
seconds, and you can delete a lot of useful files in 10 seconds.

> Dave Cragg wrote:
>
>> So do we warn people not to use revDeleteFolder, and leave them to  
>> their own potentially dangerous devices. Or simply warn people to be  
>> *extremely* careful when deleting folders and check they are in fact  
>> deleting the intended folder.
>
I think it would be good to have an optional parameter pConfirm which 
would require a user confirmation for each directory (or maybe even each 
file ?). That would make it much more "comfortable" to develop and test 
an application without fear of inadvertently passing a bad starting 
directory, and the parameter could be reverted to (the default of) "off" 
before shipping.

And as a side effect, it would need to be done in the engine rather than 
as a shell command :-)

-- 
Alex Tweedly       http://www.tweedly.net



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