Command Line trash

By  on  

One of the first commands you learn when experimenting with command line is rm, the utility for deleting files and directories. Deletion is a core computer UI operation but operating systems use a "Trash" paradigm, where files are stored before truly deleted. With the rm utility, however, files are immediately, permanently deleted.

If you're like me and afraid to automate permanent file deletion, you can opt for a utility named trash. This nice Node.js library moves files to the trash instead of instant deletion.

// Install with `yarn add trash`

// Move a file to trash
const trash = require('trash');
await trash('bug-report.jpg');

There's also a trash-cli package for using the utility from command line:

yarn add trash-cli

# Usage
trash unicorn.png rainbow.png
trash '*.png' '!unicorn.png'

rm can be really harsh so having a trash utility is helpful in providing users a file deletion paradigm that they're used to.

Recent Features

  • By
    5 HTML5 APIs You Didn’t Know Existed

    When you say or read "HTML5", you half expect exotic dancers and unicorns to walk into the room to the tune of "I'm Sexy and I Know It."  Can you blame us though?  We watched the fundamental APIs stagnate for so long that a basic feature...

  • By
    Serving Fonts from CDN

    For maximum performance, we all know we must put our assets on CDN (another domain).  Along with those assets are custom web fonts.  Unfortunately custom web fonts via CDN (or any cross-domain font request) don't work in Firefox or Internet Explorer (correctly so, by spec) though...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Create a Dynamic Table of Contents Using MooTools 1.2

    You've probably noticed that I shy away from writing really long articles. Here are a few reasons why: Most site visitors are coming from Google and just want a straight to the point, bail-me-out ASAP answer to a question. I've noticed that I have a hard time...

  • By
    Create Twitter-Style Buttons with the Dojo Toolkit

    I love that JavaScript toolkits make enhancing web pages incredibly easy. Today I'll cover an effect that I've already coded with MooTools: creating a Twitter-style animated "Sign In" button. Check out this five minute tutorial so you can take your static...

Discussion

  1. Hej David, there is even a shell alternative if you prefer to stick to the tools you already have like me. Just write down this simple function

    trash () {
            mv -v $1 $HOME/.Trash
    }
    

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!