Re: [PATCH, RFC] btrfs-progs: require mkfs -f force option to overwrite filesystem or partition table

[Goffredo Baroncelli <kreijack@gmail.com>]

On 02/26/2013 11:37 AM, Martin Steigerwald wrote:
> Am Dienstag, 26. Februar 2013 schrieb Tsutomu Itoh:
>>>> Therefore I want you to revert
>>>> commit:2a2d8e1962e8b6cda7b0a7584f6d2fb95d442cb6.
>>>>
>>>>    btrfs-progs: require mkfs -f force option to overwrite filesystem
>>>> or partition table
>>>>
>>>> How do you think about it?
>>>
>>> What if you submit a patch to look at an environment variable,
>>> BTRFS_CLOBBERS_ALL=1 which causes it to not require -f to overwrite?
>>> Then you can just set it once at the top of your test environment,
>>> and not change every instance?
>>
>> Yes. But,
>>  >> (Most of my test scripts fails without -f. So I'll always type
>> "mkfs.btrfs -f") is one example.
>>
>> Almost everyone types "mkfs.btrfs -f" (or BTRFS_CLOBBERS_ALL=1 :)
>> unconditionally, I think.
>> So, I think -f option is almost meaningless.
> 
> No.
> 
> I don´t.

me too

> 
> And I teach not to in my trainings as well.
> 
> Everyone who uses rm -rf by default even just for deleting a single file does 
> it as long as he or she deleted his / her home directory or something.

Unfortunately the "rm -rf" is a different case. Removing a directory is
a common case. We should not be forced to use the -f for common case. A
'-f' flag should be used only in "uncommon" case (like *re*format a disk
or a test-suite)...

However I think that '-f' is good for mkfs.btrfs.


> 
> Ciao,


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