rmdir --ignore-fail-on-non-empty does not work

[Tamas Papp]

$ sudo rmdir --ignore-fail-on-non-empty /tmp
rmdir: failed to remove `/tmp'

$ echo $?
1

On Lucid there is no error message and the exit code is 0.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: coreutils 8.13-3.2ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-17.28-generic 3.5.5
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-17-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu6
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu Nov 1 10:22:11 2012
InstallationDate: Installed on 2011-06-26 (493 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110426)
MarkForUpload: True
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/zsh
SourcePackage: coreutils
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to quantal on 2011-08-27 (431 days ago)

[Robert Roth (evfool)]

I have tested this with a newly created directory with a single file in it, and 'rmdir testx' exited with error 1, but 'rmdir --ignore-fail-on-non-empty testx' exited with 0 exit status, so I guess the 1 exit status on not being able to remove /tmp is not 'because a directory is non-empty' (cited from man), but maybe other errors too. I don't know however what could be causing it, as you are trying to run it with sudo, so permission issues should be out of the question.

[Tamas Papp (tompos)]

Indeed, there are systems, where I cannot reproduce.
All the systems are Precise and Quantal.

I'm trying to debug it more deeply.