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[unix-history] / usr / src / bin / rm / rm.1

.\" Copyright (c) 1980 Regents of the University of California.
.\" All rights reserved.  The Berkeley software License Agreement
.\" specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution.
.\"
.\"	@(#)rm.1	6.2 (Berkeley) %G%
.\"
.TH RM 1 ""
.UC 4
.SH NAME
rm, rmdir  \- remove (unlink) files or directories
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B rm
[
.B \-f
] [
.B \-r
] [
.B \-i
] file ...
.PP
.B rmdir
dir ...
.PP
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Rm
removes the entries for one or more files from a directory.
If an entry was the last link to the file, the file is destroyed.
Removal of a file requires write permission in its directory,
but neither read nor write permission on the file itself.
.PP
If a file has no write permission and the standard input is a terminal,
its permissions are printed and a line is read from the standard input.
If that line begins with `y' the file is deleted, otherwise the file remains.
No questions are asked and no errors are reported when the
.B \-f
(force) option is given.
.PP
If a designated file is a directory,
an error comment is printed unless the optional argument
.B \-r
has been used.  In that case,
.I rm
recursively deletes the entire contents of the specified directory,
and the directory itself.
.PP
If the
.B \-i
(interactive) option is in effect,
.I rm
asks whether to delete each file, and, under
.BR \-r ,
whether to examine each directory.
.PP
Since getopt recognizes the string ``--'' as terminating the set
of options, it can be used to allow the removal of file names
starting with a dash.
.PP
.I Rmdir
removes entries for the named directories, which must be empty.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
rm(1), unlink(2), rmdir(2)