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)