rm(1) User Commands 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...
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 begins with y (for yes), 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 is 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.
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 files (even if write-protected) in a directory without
prompting the user. In a write-protected directory, however,
files are never removed (whatever their permissions are) and no
messages are displayed.
-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.
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 ( 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:
example% rm a.out core
removes the directory entries a.out and core.
Example 2 Removing a directory without prompting
The following command:
example% rm -rf junk
removes the directory junk and all its contents, without prompting.
/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.
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 │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Interface Stability │Standard │
└─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
SEE ALSOrmdir(2), unlink(2), attributes(5), environ(5), largefile(5), stan‐
dards(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.
SunOS 5.10 15 Nov 2011 rm(1)
