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Asked: 2014-07-27 00:59:01 +0800 CST

What happens if we add a dot at the end of sudo `apt-get autoremove`

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sudo apt-get autoremove .

OUTPUT:

WARNING: The following essential packages will be removed.
This should NOT be done unless you know exactly what you are doing!
apt libapt-pkg4.12 (due to apt) libc6 (due to apt) libgcc1 (due to apt)
libstdc++6 (due to apt) ubuntu-keyring (due to apt) gnupg (due to apt)
base-files base-passwd libdebconfclient0 (due to base-passwd) bash
debianutils (due to bash) dash (due to bash) libtinfo5 (due to bash)
bsdutils coreutils libacl1 (due to coreutils) libattr1 (due to coreutils)
libselinux1 (due to coreutils) dpkg (due to dash) sensible-utils (due to
debianutils) diffutils libbz2-1.0 (due to dpkg) liblzma5 (due to dpkg)
zlib1g (due to dpkg) tar (due to dpkg) e2fsprogs e2fslibs (due to e2fsprogs)
libblkid1 (due to e2fsprogs) libcomerr2 (due to e2fsprogs) libss2 (due to
e2fsprogs) libuuid1 (due to e2fsprogs) util-linux (due to e2fsprogs)
findutils grep install-info (due to grep) libpcre3 (due to grep) gzip
hostname libc-bin libcap2 (due to libc-bin) login libpam0g (due to login)
libpam-runtime (due to login) libpam-modules (due to login) mount libmount1
(due to mount) ncurses-base ncurses-bin perl-base sed lsb-base (due to
util-linux) tzdata (due to util-linux) debconf (due to util-linux) sysv-rc
(due to util-linux) libncurses5 (due to util-linux) libslang2 (due to
util-linux)
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2913 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 8,775 MB disk space will be freed.
You are about to do something potentially harmful.
To continue type in the phrase 'Yes, do as I say!'
?]

What does that dot do?

apt

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Wow, first don't do that. The command:

    apt-get autoremove a_packet_name

    Will remove the specified package and all it's dependencies. But you can use regular expression as package names. So a packet name of . will match every installed packages on your system. Indeed very harmful!

    Additional details from man apt-get:

    If no package matches the given expression and the expression contains one of '.', '?' or '*' then it is assumed to be a POSIX regular expression, and it is applied to all package names in the database. Any matches are then installed (or removed). Note that matching is done by substring so 'lo.*' matches 'how-lo' and 'lowest'. If this is undesired, anchor the regular expression with a '^' or '$' character, or create a more specific regular expression.

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