Table of Contents
rm, rmdir - remove (unlink) files or directories
rm [ - ] [ -fir ] filename...
rmdir directory...
rm removes (directory entries for) one or more files. If an
entry was the last link to the file, the contents of that
file are lost. See ln(1V) for more information about multiple
links to files.
To remove a file, you must have write permission in its
directory; but you do not need read or write permission on
the file itself. If you do not have write permission on the
file and the standard input is a terminal, rm displays the
file's permissions and waits for you to type in a response.
If your response begins with y the file is deleted; otherwise
the file is left alone.
rmdir removes each named directory. rmdir only removes
empty directories.
- -
- Treat the following arguments as filenames `-' so that
you can specify filenames starting with a minus.
- -f
- Force files to be removed without displaying permissions,
asking questions or reporting errors.
- -i
- Ask whether to delete each file, and, under -r, whether
to examine each directory. Sometimes called the
interactive option.
- -r
- Recursively delete the contents of a directory, its
subdirectories, and the directory itself.
ln(1V), su(1V)
`rm -r' removes a directory and its files only if your real
user ID has write permission on that directory.
rm: filename: No such file or directory
filename does not exist. rm will also return false (1)
if filename was not found.
It is forbidden to remove the file `..' to avoid the antisocial
consequences of inadvertently doing something like `rm
-r .*'.
Table of Contents