Trying to remove my .git folder and 'rm -r .git --force' is not working

Question

rm -r .git
rm -r .git --force

I get the following and there seems to be a never ending supply after I enter 'yes' and move to the next.

override r--r--r--  redacted/staff for .git/objects/95/90087aa4b351e278e6e53ff6240045ab2db6d1?

Impassioned

rm is hashed (/bin/rm) – Impassioned

Not sure if it's your issue, but you have the command wrong, which should be rm -rf .git. Your command would error out with: rm: --force: No such file or directory. – Goth

@JohnKugelman no opinion on what most commands do, but the rm command, at least the BSD version that ships on Mac OS X, does what I said because I just tested it. – Goth

@seamus, perhaps update the question to show the exact command you are typing and the exact output. – Goth

With my linux, the --force in last place works the same as -r before. But both prevent the "file not found" error to show. Really, really try rm -r .git, you will see more diagnostic. – Profiterole

@JohnKugelman "most programs accept options anywhere" This is a non-standard GNU extension. POSIX requires otherwise and there's POSIXLY_CORRECT environment that exforces this. BSD userland is not GNU and doesn't have this extension. – Guidepost

@n.m. because I don't have a Linux to test on, are you saying that rm on Linux in fact will accept --force after the filename? – Goth

@AlexHarvey yes by default it should be accepted on Linux, or any machine with GNU coreutils indeed. – Guidepost

Answer 1

Analysis and explanation:

The message override r--r--r-- ...? is seen in some versions of the rm command when you try to delete a file or files with the rm command that have write access removed.

To reproduce:

▶ mkdir -p foo/{bar,baz} ; touch foo/bar/qux 
▶ chmod -R -w foo 
▶ find foo -ls 
4305147410        0 dr-xr-xr-x    4 alexharvey       wheel                 128 24 Mar 18:19 foo
4305147412        0 dr-xr-xr-x    2 alexharvey       wheel                  64 24 Mar 18:19 foo/baz
4305147411        0 dr-xr-xr-x    3 alexharvey       wheel                  96 24 Mar 18:19 foo/bar
4305147413        0 -r--r--r--    1 alexharvey       wheel                   0 24 Mar 18:19 foo/bar/qux

Now if you try to delete these files you'll be asked if you really want to override this file mode:

▶ rm -r foo
override r-xr-xr-x  alexharvey/wheel for foo/baz? 

Note also that if you are on Mac OS X or other BSD variant, as appears to be the case, then you have specified the --force argument incorrectly by adding it to the end of the command line, where it will be interpreted as the name of an additional file to delete.

But even if I correct that, -f still can't override r--r--r--. Instead, you would see this:

▶ rm -rf foo       
rm: foo/baz: Permission denied
rm: foo/bar/qux: Permission denied
rm: foo/bar: Permission denied
rm: foo: Directory not empty

---

The fix:

To fix this, firstly restore the write permission within the folder:

▶ chmod -R +w foo

Then rm -r should work fine:

▶ rm -r foo
▶ ls foo 
ls: foo: No such file or directory

See also:

• this related question at Unix & Linux Stack Exchange.
• source code for BSD rm here.

Goth

Answer 2

if you want to delete directories in git, just log in to sudo:

$ sudo rm -r file-name

Proofread

Answer 3

rm -rf .folder 

does the trick without spending extra time setting parameters

Haga

Answer 4

The error message you're seeing suggests that you don't have sufficient permissions to delete the file or directory. This could be due to a variety of reasons, including file ownership or permissions settings.

You can try the either one of these options to delete the local folder:

1. Use sudo: If you have administrative privileges on your system, you can use the sudo command to execute the rm command as the root user. The root user has the ability to delete any file on the system. Here is how you do it: sudo rm -rf foo
2. Change file permissions: If you don't have administrative privileges, or don't want to use sudo, you can try changing the permissions of the files: chmod -R u+w

Tuberculosis

Answer 5

First restore the writing permission:

chmod -R +w folder

Then remove it:

rm -r folder

Cadena