RMDIR(1P) POSIX Programmer's Manual RMDIR(1P)PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux
implementation of this interface may differ (consult the corresponding
Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may
not be implemented on Linux.
NAMErmdir — remove directories
SYNOPSISrmdir [−p] dir...
DESCRIPTION
The rmdir utility shall remove the directory entry specified by each
dir operand.
For each dir operand, the rmdir utility shall perform actions equiva‐
lent to the rmdir() function called with the dir operand as its only
argument.
Directories shall be processed in the order specified. If a directory
and a subdirectory of that directory are specified in a single invoca‐
tion of the rmdir utility, the application shall specify the subdirec‐
tory before the parent directory so that the parent directory will be
empty when the rmdir utility tries to remove it.
OPTIONS
The rmdir utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of
POSIX.1‐2008, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.
The following option shall be supported:
−p Remove all directories in a pathname. For each dir operand:
1. The directory entry it names shall be removed.
2. If the dir operand includes more than one pathname compo‐
nent, effects equivalent to the following command shall
occur:
rmdir −p $(dirname dir)
OPERANDS
The following operand shall be supported:
dir A pathname of an empty directory to be removed.
STDIN
Not used.
INPUT FILES
None.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables shall affect the execution of
rmdir:
LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization vari‐
ables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions vol‐
ume of POSIX.1‐2008, Section 8.2, Internationalization Vari‐
ables for the precedence of internationalization variables
used to determine the values of locale categories.)
LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of
all the other internationalization variables.
LC_CTYPE Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of
bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as
opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments).
LC_MESSAGES
Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format
and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard
error.
NLSPATH Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing
of LC_MESSAGES.
ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
Default.
STDOUT
Not used.
STDERR
The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
OUTPUT FILES
None.
EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
None.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values shall be returned:
0 Each directory entry specified by a dir operand was removed suc‐
cessfully.
>0 An error occurred.
CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
Default.
The following sections are informative.
APPLICATION USAGE
The definition of an empty directory is one that contains, at most,
directory entries for dot and dot-dot.
EXAMPLES
If a directory a in the current directory is empty except it contains a
directory b and a/b is empty except it contains a directory c:
rmdir −p a/b/c
removes all three directories.
RATIONALE
On historical System V systems, the −p option also caused a message to
be written to the standard output. The message indicated whether the
whole path was removed or whether part of the path remained for some
reason. The STDERR section requires this diagnostic when the entire
path specified by a dir operand is not removed, but does not allow the
status message reporting success to be written as a diagnostic.
The rmdir utility on System V also included a −s option that suppressed
the informational message output by the −p option. This option has been
omitted because the informational message is not specified by this vol‐
ume of POSIX.1‐2008.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.
SEE ALSO
rm
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Chapter 8, Environment
Variables, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines
The System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2008, remove(), rmdir(),
unlink()COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information Technology
-- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the Institute of Electri‐
cal and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. (This is
POSIX.1-2008 with the 2013 Technical Corrigendum 1 applied.) In the
event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online
at http://www.unix.org/online.html .
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are
most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source
files to man page format. To report such errors, see https://www.ker‐
nel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .
IEEE/The Open Group 2013 RMDIR(1P)
