In Unix, how do you remove everything in the current directory and below it?

Question

I know this will delete everything in a subdirectory and below it:

rm -rf 

But how do you delete everything in the current d

Answer 1

Use

rm -rf *

Update: The . stands for current directory, but we cannot use this. The command seems to have explicit checks for . and ... Use the wildcard globbing instead. But this can be risky.

A safer version IMO is to use:

rm -ri * 

(this prompts you for confirmation before deleting every file/directory.)