fastrm man page on 4.4BSD

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FASTRM(1)							     FASTRM(1)

NAME
       fastrm - quickly remove a set of files

SYNOPSIS
       fastrm [ -d ] [ -e ] [ -uN ] [ -sM ] [ -cI ] base_directory

DESCRIPTION
       Fastrm reads a list of files, one per line, from its standard input and
       removes them.  If a file is not an absolute pathname, it is taken rela‐
       tive  to	 the directory specified on the command line.  The base_direc‐
       tory parameter must be a simple absolute pathname — that	 is,  it  must
       not contain any ``/./'' or ``/../'' references.

       Fastrm  is  designed to be faster than the typical ``| xargs rm'' pipe‐
       line.  For example, fastrm  will	 usually  chdir(2)  into  a  directory
       before removing files from it.  If the input is sorted, this means that
       most files to be removed will be simple names.

       Fastrm assumes that its input is valid and that it is safe to  just  do
       an unlink(2) call for each item to be removed.  As a safety measure, if
       fastrm is run by root it will first stat(2) the item to make sure  that
       it is not a directory before unlinking it.

       If  the	``-d'' flag is used then no files are removed.	Instead a list
       of the files to be removed, in debug form, is printed on	 the  standard
       output.	 Each  line contains either the current directory of fastrm at
       the time it would do the unlink, and then the path name it  would  pass
       to unlink(2) as two fields separated by white space and a ``/'', or the
       absolute path name (a single field) of files it would unlink using  the
       absolute path name.

       If  the	``-e''	flag  is  used,	 fastrm will treat an empty input file
       (stdin) as an error.  This is most useful when  fastrm  is  last	 in  a
       pipeline	 after	a  preceding  sort(1) as if the sort fails, there will
       usually be no output to become input of fastrm.

       If the ``-u'' flag is used, then fastrm makes further assumptions about
       its  work  environment; in particular, that there are no symbolic links
       in the target tree.  This flag also suggests that it is probably faster
       to reference the path ``../../../'' rather than start from the root and
       come down.  (Note that this probably isn't true on systems that have  a
       namei  cache,  which  usually  holds  everything	 except	 ``..'').  The
       optional N is an integer that specifies the maximum  number  of	``..''
       segments	 to use — paths that would use more than this use the absolute
       path name (from the root) instead.  If the ``-u'' flag is given without
       a value, ``-u1'' is assumed.

       If  the	``-s'' flag is used, then fastrm will perform the unlinks from
       one directory — that is when a group of files in one  directory	appear
       in  the input consecutively — in the order that the files appear in the
       directory from which they are to be removed.  The intent of  this  flag
       is  that	 on  systems  that have a per-process directory cache, finding
       files in the directory should be faster.	 It can have smaller  benefits
       on other systems.  The optional M is an integer that specifies the num‐
       ber of files that must be going to be removed from one directory before
       the  files  will	 be  ordered.	If  the ``-s'' flag is given without a
       value, ``-s5'' is assumed.  When the directory  reordering  is  in  use
       fastrm  will  avoid attempting to unlink files that it can't see in the
       directory, which can speed it appreciably when many of the  file	 names
       have already been removed.

       The  ``-c''  flag  may  be  given  to  instruct	fastrm	when it should
       chdir(2).  If the number of files to be unlinked from a directory is at
       least  I then fastrm will chdir and unlink the files from in the direc‐
       tory.  Otherwise it will build a path relative to  its  current	direc‐
       tory.   If  ``-c'' is given without the optional integer I then ``-c1''
       is assumed, which will cause fastrm to always use chdir.	 If ``-c''  is
       not  used at all, then ``-c3'' is assumed.  Use ``-c0'' to prevent fas‐
       trm from ever using chdir(2).

       There are also ``-a'' and ``-r'' options,  which	 do  nothing  at  all,
       except  allow  you  to say ``fastrm -usa'' ``fastrm -ussr'' or ``fastrm
       -user''.	 These happen to often be convenient sets of options to use.

       Fastrm exits with a status of zero if there were no problems, or one if
       something  went wrong.  Attempting to remove a file that does not exist
       is not considered a problem.  If the program exits with a non-zero sta‐
       tus,  it	 is  probably  a  good	idea to feed the list of files into an
       ``xargs rm'' pipeline.

HISTORY
       This is revision 1.2, dated 1993/01/29.

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