| dsw | |
|---|---|
| Original authors | Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson |
| Developer | AT&T Bell Laboratories |
| Initial release | November 3, 1971 (1971-11-03) |
| Operating system | Unix |
| Type | Command |
dsw (delete from switches) is an obsolete Unix shell command which enables deletion of files with non-typeable characters. The command debuted in Unix Version 1 and was replaced by adding the -i option to rm1 in Version 7. Doug McIlroy wrote that dsw "was a desperation tool designed to clean up files with unutterable names".2
References
References
- A Brief History of the 'rm' and 'rmdir' commands
- McIlroy, M. D. (1987). A Research Unix reader: annotated excerpts from the Programmer's Manual, 1971–1986 (PDF) (Technical report). CSTR. Bell Labs. 139.