Is it safe to remove a script file from within that script?

Question

Imagine I have a script foo. It should be run once when the user logs in and isn't needed after a successful run.

My question: Is it safe to remove the script file from within the script?

E.g.:

#!/bin/bash

# do something
...

# if successful
rm /path/to/foo
exit 0

Answer 1

It it safe to remove the shell file while running it, since file handlers are not affected by (re)moving the corresponding file.

For more information, see here.

Answer 2

I was always nervous about this so I did:

(sleep 5; rm /path/to/shell/script) &
exit 0

Alternately you can chain to a temporary script:

echo >/tmp/rmme rm /path/to/shell/script
. /tmp/rmme