rm - remove files or directories
rm [OPTION]... FILE...
RM(1) 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 terminal, and
the -f or --force option is not given, or the -i or --interac-
tive=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 giv-
ing 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 directory 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
-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 directory, 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 possible to
recover some of its contents, given sufficient expertise and/or time.
For greater assurance that the contents are truly unrecoverable, con-
sider 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/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
Report rm translation bugs to <http://translationproject.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 redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+---------------+--------------------+
|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 com-
mand
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/core-
utils-8.16.tar.xz
Further information about this software can be found on the open source
community website at http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/.
GNU coreutils 8.16 March 2012 RM(1)