rm(1)

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | OPERANDS | USAGE | EXAMPLES | ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES | EXIT STATUS | ATTRIBUTES | SEE ALSO | DIAGNOSTICS | NOTES

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 symbolic link, provided they have write permissions in the directory.

If multiple file s are specified and removal of a file fails for any reason, rm will write a diagnostic message to standard error, do nothing more to the current file , and go on to any remaining file s.

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 directory.

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 remove directories and subdirectories in 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 directory 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 directory is attempted, the utility will always fail (even if the -f option is used), resulting in an error message.

-R

Same as -r option.

/usr/bin/rm

The following options are supported for /usr/bin/rm only:

-f

Remove 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 directory is attempted, this option will not suppress an error message.

-i

Interactive. With this option, rm prompts for confirmation 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

Do not prompt for confirmation. Do not write diagnostic messages or modify the exit status in the case of non-existent operands. Any previous occurrences of the -i option will be ignored.

-i

Prompt 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

Allow 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 could not be removed.

-s

Suppress 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 ( 2³¹ bytes).

EXAMPLES

/usr/bin/rm /usr/xpg4/bin/rm

The following command:

---

example% rm a.out core

---

removes the directory entries: a.out and core .

The following command:

---

example% rm -rf junk

---

removes the directory junk and all its contents, without prompting.

/usr/bin/rmdir

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

---

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 attributes:

/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) , largefile(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:

---

rm -r .*

---

NOTES

A - permits the user to mark explicitly the end of any command 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 disappear in a future release. If a - and a - both appear on the same command line, the second will be interpreted as a file.

SunOS 5.8  Last Revised 24 Oct 1997

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | OPERANDS | USAGE | EXAMPLES | ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES | EXIT STATUS | ATTRIBUTES | SEE ALSO | DIAGNOSTICS | NOTES