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
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.
rm <it-self> will not succeed on HP-Ux.
unlink may fail with ETXTBUSY. (Oddly, “pure procedure” and “shared text” aren't defined in the spec; AFAIK they mean a component of an executable program: the executable itself or a library it uses). All major unices other than HP-UX allow executables to be renamed and unlinked.
Feb 29, 2012 at 19:49
exec rm /path/to/foo.
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
#!/bin/bash -eto ensure that the script file is removed only if nothing goes wrong.exec rm /path/to/foo.