RM(1)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...
ksh93
/usr/bin/rmdir [-eps] dirname...
DESCRIPTION
/usr/bin/rm /usr/xpg4/bin/rm
The rm utility removes the directory entry specified by each file argu‐
ment. 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 is affirmative, the file is deleted, otherwise the file
remains.
If file is a symbolic link, the link is removed, but the file or direc‐
tory to which it refers is not deleted. Users do not need write permis‐
sion to remove a symbolic link, provided they have write permissions in
the directory.
If multiple files are specified and removal of a file fails for any
reason, rm writes a diagnostic message to standard 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 operates as if the
-f option is in effect.
/usr/bin/rmdir
The rmdir utility removes the directory entry specified by each dirname
operand, which must refer to an empty directory.
Directories are 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 is empty when rmdir tries to remove it.
ksh93
The rmdir built-in in ksh93 is associated with the /bin and /usr/bin
paths. It is invoked when rmdir is executed without a pathname prefix
and the pathname search finds a /bin/rmdir or /usr/bin/rmdir exe‐
cutable.
rmdir deletes each given directory. The directory must be empty and
contain no entries other than . or ... If a directory and a subdirec‐
tory of that directory are specified as operands, the subdirectory must
be specified before the parent, so that the parent directory is empty
when rmdir attempts 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 the argu‐
ment list. The directory is 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 is not tra‐
versed.
If the removal of a non-empty, write-protected directory is
attempted, the utility always fails (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
Removes all files (whether write-protected or not) in a directory
without prompting the user. In a write-protected directory, how‐
ever, files are never removed (whatever their permissions are),
but no messages are displayed. If the removal of a write-pro‐
tected directory is attempted, this option does 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
Does not prompt for confirmation. Does not write diagnostic mes‐
sages or modify the exit status in the case of non-existent oper‐
ands. Any previous occurrences of the -i option is ignored.
-i
Prompts for confirmation. Any occurrences of the -f option is
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 could not be removed.
-s
Suppresses the message printed on the standard error when -p is
in effect.
ksh93
The following options are supported for the rmdir built-in for ksh93:
-e
--ignore-fail-on-non-empty
Ignore each non-empty directory failure.
-p
--parents
Remove each explicit directory argument
directory that becomes empty after its
child directories are removed.
-s
--suppress
Suppress the message printed on the stan‐
dard error when -p is in effect.
OPERANDS
The following operands are supported:
file
Specifies the pathname of a directory entry to be removed.
dirname
Specifies the pathname 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
The following examples are valid for the commands shown.
/usr/bin/rm, /usr/xpg4/bin/rm
Example 1 Removing Directories
The following command removes the directory entries a.out and core:
example% rm a.out core
Example 2 Removing a Directory without Prompting
The following command removes the directory junk and all its contents,
without prompting:
example% rm -rf junk
/usr/bin/rmdir
Example 3 Removing Empty Directories
If a directory a in the current directory is empty, except that it con‐
tains a directory b, and a/b is empty except that it contains a direc‐
tory c, the following command removes all three directories:
example% rmdir-p a/b/c
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables
that affect the execution of rm and rmdir: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_COLLATE,
LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH.
Affirmative responses are processed using the extended regular expres‐
sion defined for the yesexpr keyword in the LC_MESSAGES category of the
user's locale. The locale specified in the LC_COLLATE category defines
the behavior of ranges, equivalence classes, and multi-character col‐
lating elements used in the expression defined for yesexpr. The locale
specified in LC_CTYPE determines the locale for interpretation of
sequences of bytes of text data a characters, the behavior of character
classes used in the expression defined for the yesexpr. See locale(5).
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.
ksh93
The following exit values are returned:
0
Successful completion. All directories deleted successfully.
>0
An error occurred. One or more directories could not be deleted.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
/usr/bin/rm, /usr/bin/rmdir
┌───────────────┬─────────────────┐
│ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
├───────────────┼─────────────────┤
│CSI │ Enabled │
└───────────────┴─────────────────┘
/usr/xpg4/bin/rm
┌────────────────────┬───────────────────┐
│ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
├────────────────────┼───────────────────┤
│CSI │ Enabled │
├────────────────────┼───────────────────┤
│Interface Stability │ Committed │
├────────────────────┼───────────────────┤
│Standard │ See standards(5). │
└────────────────────┴───────────────────┘
ksh93
┌────────────────────┬─────────────────┐
│ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
├────────────────────┼─────────────────┤
│Interface Stability │ See below. │
└────────────────────┴─────────────────┘
The ksh93 built-in binding to /bin and /usr/bin is Volatile. The
built-in interfaces are Uncommitted.
SEE ALSOksh93(1), rmdir(2), rmdir(2), unlink(2), attributes(5), environ(5),
largefile(5), standards(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:
example% rm -r .*
It is forbidden to remove the file "/" in order to avoid the conse‐
quences of inadvertently doing something like:
example% rm -rf $x/$y
or
example% rm -rf /$y
when $x and $y expand to empty strings.
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 accepts −− 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 is interpreted as a file.
Nov 20, 2007 RM(1)
