Cargo clean removes target directory, even when it is a softlink about cargo HOT 3 CLOSED

See #7510 (comment) and dicussions in the closed PR, which consider this as an expected behavior. See also alternaive designs like rust-lang/rfcs#3371 for templating target directories.

Besides alternatives, is there any specific reason you can't set CARGO_TARGET_DIR to the actual directory instead of using a symlink?

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See #7510 (comment) and dicussions in the closed PR, which consider this as an expected behavior. See also alternaive designs like rust-lang/rfcs#3371 for templating target directories.

Ok, yeah. That makes sense. But given that cargo clean is mostly a manual command, maybe it should warn the user, but proceed as normal?

Besides alternatives, is there any specific reason you can't set CARGO_TARGET_DIR to the actual directory instead of using a symlink?

I didn't realize that setting the target-dir would propagate through modules in my context, that did in fact work. Thanks for pointing that out.

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From the manual:

With no options, cargo clean will delete the entire target directory.

Basically cargo clean is an rm -rf taking effect like immediately, so when seeing a warning it's too late. There is a --dry-run flag. When with doubt, users can dry-run a clean before the actual clean, such as cargo clean --verbose --dry-run. Interactive console is also an option, but due to compatibility reasons, that won't become the default behavior of cargo clean in my opinion.

Going to close this in favor of rust-lang/rfcs#3371 and CARGO_TARGET_DIR. Thank you for the report :)

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