It is my personal opinion that you don't need "*" character ever there are other alternatives available always. And if avoiding that character makes it far safer I'm all for it.
rm -rf /+(?)
If anyone not understanding the joke,
+ character matches 1 or more instances, and (?) matches any one character.
And / is start of entire filesystem.
rm is remove. -rf (recursive, never ask verification).
So it removes every file that you have rights to remove.
You can also do same thing accidentally by proxy. When my first computing teacher asked entire class to write anything to terminal to show that you had to write specific commands and computers don't understand normal language. Then she told to press enter. I asked her if she was sure. She asked why.
I said that I wrote "format c:" . I have never seen teacher walk so fast in a classroom. I think that was last time she used that line in the classroom.
rm -rf /+(?)
If anyone not understanding the joke, + character matches 1 or more instances, and (?) matches any one character. And / is start of entire filesystem. rm is remove. -rf (recursive, never ask verification). So it removes every file that you have rights to remove.
You can also do same thing accidentally by proxy. When my first computing teacher asked entire class to write anything to terminal to show that you had to write specific commands and computers don't understand normal language. Then she told to press enter. I asked her if she was sure. She asked why. I said that I wrote "format c:" . I have never seen teacher walk so fast in a classroom. I think that was last time she used that line in the classroom.