rm
(1g)
Name
rm - remove files or directories
Synopsis
rm [OPTION]... FILE...
Description
User Commands RM(1)
NAME
rm - remove files or directories
SYNOPSIS
rm [OPTION]... FILE...
DESCRIPTION
This manual page documents the GNU version of rm. rm
removes each specified file. By default, it does not remove
directories.
If the -I or --interactive=once option is given, and there
are more than three files or the -r, -R, or --recursive are
given, then rm prompts the user for whether to proceed with
the entire operation. If the response is not affirmative,
the entire command is aborted.
Otherwise, if a file is unwritable, standard input is a ter-
minal, and the -f or --force option is not given, or the -i
or --interactive=always option is given, rm prompts the user
for whether to remove the file. If the response is not
affirmative, the file is skipped.
OPTIONS
Remove (unlink) the FILE(s).
-f, --force
ignore nonexistent files and arguments, never prompt
-i prompt before every removal
-I prompt once before removing more than three files, or
when removing recursively. Less intrusive than -i,
while still giving protection against most mistakes
--interactive[=WHEN]
prompt according to WHEN: never, once (-I), or always
(-i). Without WHEN, prompt always
--one-file-system
when removing a hierarchy recursively, skip any direc-
tory that is on a file system different from that of
the corresponding command line argument
--no-preserve-root
do not treat '/' specially
--preserve-root
do not remove '/' (default)
-r, -R, --recursive
remove directories and their contents recursively
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User Commands RM(1)
-v, --verbose
explain what is being done
--help
display this help and exit
--version
output version information and exit
By default, rm does not remove directories. Use the
--recursive (-r or -R) option to remove each listed direc-
tory, too, along with all of its contents.
To remove a file whose name starts with a '-', for example
'-foo', use one of these commands:
rm -- -foo
rm ./-foo
Note that if you use rm to remove a file, it might be possi-
ble to recover some of its contents, given sufficient exper-
tise and/or time. For greater assurance that the contents
are truly unrecoverable, consider using shred.
AUTHOR
Written by Paul Rubin, David MacKenzie, Richard M. Stallman,
and Jim Meyering.
REPORTING BUGS
Report rm bugs to bug-coreutils@gnu.org
GNU coreutils home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/core-
utils/>
General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/geth-
elp/>
Report rm translation bugs to <http://translationpro-
ject.org/team/>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License
GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later
<http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redis-
tribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted
by law.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following
attributes:
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User Commands RM(1)
+---------------+--------------------+
|ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+---------------+--------------------+
|Availability | file/gnu-coreutils |
+---------------+--------------------+
|Stability | Uncommitted |
+---------------+--------------------+
SEE ALSO
unlink(1), unlink(2), shred(1)
The full documentation for rm is maintained as a Texinfo
manual. If the info and rm programs are properly installed
at your site, the command
info coreutils 'rm invocation'
should give you access to the complete manual.
NOTES
This software was built from source available at
https://java.net/projects/solaris-userland. The original
community source was downloaded from
http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-8.16.tar.xz
Further information about this software can be found on the
open source community website at http://www.gnu.org/soft-
ware/coreutils/.
GNU coreutils 8.16 Last change: March 2012 3