RM man page on SmartOS

Man page or keyword search:  
man Server   16655 pages
apropos Keyword Search (all sections)
Output format
SmartOS logo
[printable version]

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 ALSO
       ksh93(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)
[top]

List of man pages available for SmartOS

Copyright (c) for man pages and the logo by the respective OS vendor.

For those who want to learn more, the polarhome community provides shell access and support.

[legal] [privacy] [GNU] [policy] [cookies] [netiquette] [sponsors] [FAQ]
Tweet
Polarhome, production since 1999.
Member of Polarhome portal.
Based on Fawad Halim's script.
....................................................................
Vote for polarhome
Free Shell Accounts :: the biggest list on the net