rm Help
User Commands rm(1)
NAME
rm, rmdir - remove directory entries
SYNOPSIS
/usr/bin/rm [-f] [-i] file...
/usr/bin/rm -rR [-f] [-i] dirname... [file...]
/usr/xpg4/bin/rm [-fiRr] file...
/usr/bin/rmdir [-ps] dirname...
DESCRIPTION
/usr/bin/rm /usr/xpg4/bin/rm
The rm utility removes the directory entry specified by each
file argument. If a file has no write permission and the
standard input is a terminal, the full set of permissions
(in octal) for the file are printed followed by a question
mark. This is a prompt for confirmation. If the answer
begins with y (for yes), the file is deleted, otherwise the
file remains.
If file is a symbolic link, the link will be removed, but
the file or directory to which it refers will not be
deleted. Users do not need write permission to remove a sym-
bolic link, provided they have write permissions in the
directory.
If multiple files are specified and removal of a file fails
for any reason, rm will write a diagnostic message to stan-
dard error, do nothing more to the current file, and go on
to any remaining files.
If the standard input is not a terminal, the utility will
operate as if the -f option is in effect.
/usr/bin/rmdir
The rmdir utility will remove the directory entry specified
by each dirname operand, which must refer to an empty direc-
tory.
Directories will be processed in the order specified. If a
directory and a subdirectory of that directory are specified
in a single invocation of rmdir, the subdirectory must be
specified before the parent directory so that the parent
directory will be empty when rmdir tries to remove it.
OPTIONS
The following options are supported for /usr/bin/rm and
/usr/xpg4/bin/rm:
-r Recursively removes directories and subdirectories in
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User Commands rm(1)
the argument list. The directory will be emptied of
files and removed. The user is normally prompted for
removal of any write-protected files which the direc-
tory contains. The write-protected files are removed
without prompting, however, if the -f option is used,
or if the standard input is not a terminal and the -i
option is not used.
Symbolic links that are encountered with this option
will not be traversed.
If the removal of a non-empty, write-protected direc-
tory is attempted, the utility will always fail (even
if the -f option is used), resulting in an error mes-
sage.
-R Same as -r option.
/usr/bin/rm
The following options are supported for /usr/bin/rm only:
-f Removes all files (whether write-protected or not) in
a directory without prompting the user. In a write-
protected directory, however, files are never removed
(whatever their permissions are), but no messages are
displayed. If the removal of a write-protected direc-
tory is attempted, this option will not suppress an
error message.
-i Interactive. With this option, rm prompts for confir-
mation before removing any files. It overrides the -f
option and remains in effect even if the standard
input is not a terminal.
/usr/xpg4/bin/rm
The following options are supported for /usr/xpg4/bin/rm
only:
-f Does not prompt for confirmation. Does not write diag-
nostic messages or modify the exit status in the case
of non-existent operands. Any previous occurrences of
the -i option will be ignored.
-i Prompts for confirmation. Any occurrences of the -f
option will be ignored.
/usr/bin/rmdir
The following options are supported for /usr/bin/rmdir only:
-p Allows users to remove the directory dirname and its
parent directories which become empty. A message is
printed to standard error if all or part of the path
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User Commands rm(1)
could not be removed.
-s Suppresses the message printed on the standard error
when -p is in effect.
OPERANDS
The following operands are supported:
file A path name of a directory entry to be removed.
dirname
A path name of an empty directory to be removed.
USAGE
See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of rm
and rmdir when encountering files greater than or equal to 2
Gbyte ( 2**31 bytes).
EXAMPLES
/usr/bin/rm /usr/xpg4/bin/rm
Example 1: Removing directories
The following command:
example% rm a.out core
removes the directory entries a.out and core.
Example 2: Removing a directory without prompting
The following command:
example% rm -rf junk
removes the directory junk and all its contents, without
prompting.
/usr/bin/rmdir
Example 3: Removing empty directories
If a directory a in the current directory is empty, except
that it contains a directory b, and a/b is empty except that
it contains a directory c,
example% rmdir -p a/b/c
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User Commands rm(1)
will remove all three directories.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment
variables that affect the execution of rm and rmdir:
LC_COLLATE, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned:
0 If the -f option was not specified, all the named
directory entries were removed; otherwise, all the
existing named directory entries were removed.
>0 An error occurred.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri-
butes:
/usr/bin/rm /usr/bin/rmdir
____________________________________________________________
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
| Availability | SUNWcsu |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
| CSI | enabled |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
/usr/xpg4/bin/rm
____________________________________________________________
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
| Availability | SUNWxcu4 |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
| CSI | enabled |
|_____________________________|_____________________________|
SEE ALSO
rmdir(2), unlink(2), attributes(5), environ(5), large-
file(5), XPG4(5)
DIAGNOSTICS
All messages are generally self-explanatory.
It is forbidden to remove the files "." and ".." in order to
avoid the consequences of inadvertently doing something like
the following:
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User Commands rm(1)
example% rm -r .*
NOTES
A - permits the user to mark explicitly the end of any com-
mand line options, allowing rm to recognize file arguments
that begin with a -. As an aid to BSD migration, rm will
accept -- as a synonym for -. This migration aid may disap-
pear in a future release. If a -- and a - both appear on the
same command line, the second will be interpreted as a file.
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