Problem deleting files

[John R. Levine]

>>  $ rm -rf .
>>
>>  (Be really sure you're in the right directory.)
>
> Yes, I did. It returned argument list too long.

Not to contradict you, but the phrase "too long" does not appear in the 
source code to the rm program, and I am reasonably sure it does not 
produce that message.  On the other hand the shell does produce that 
message when expanding wild cards.  So are you sure you tried this:

$ rm -rf .

and not this?

$ rm -rf *

They're not the same.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl at iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly