projects / unix-history / blame
| Commit | Line | Data |
|---|---|---|
| 78652bce KM |
1 | .\" Copyright (c) 1983 Regents of the University of California. |
| 2 | .\" All rights reserved. The Berkeley software License Agreement | |
| 3 | .\" specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution. | |
| 4 | .\" | |
| 35705f59 | 5 | .\" @(#)rmdir.1 6.1 (Berkeley) %G% |
| 78652bce | 6 | .\" |
| 35705f59 | 7 | .TH RMDIR 1 "" |
| 78652bce KM |
8 | .UC 5 |
| 9 | .SH NAME | |
| 10 | rmdir, rm \- remove (unlink) directories or files | |
| 11 | .SH SYNOPSIS | |
| 12 | .B rmdir | |
| 13 | dir ... | |
| 14 | .PP | |
| 15 | .B rm | |
| 16 | [ | |
| 17 | .B \-f | |
| 18 | ] [ | |
| 19 | .B \-r | |
| 20 | ] [ | |
| 21 | .B \-i | |
| 22 | ] [ | |
| 23 | .B \- | |
| 24 | ] file ... | |
| 25 | .PP | |
| 26 | .SH DESCRIPTION | |
| 27 | .PP | |
| 28 | .I Rmdir | |
| 29 | removes entries for the named directories, which must be empty. | |
| 30 | .PP | |
| 31 | .I Rm | |
| 32 | removes the entries for one or more files from a directory. | |
| 33 | If an entry was the last link to the file, the file is destroyed. | |
| 34 | Removal of a file requires write permission in its directory, | |
| 35 | but neither read nor write permission on the file itself. | |
| 36 | .PP | |
| 37 | If a file has no write permission and the standard input is a terminal, | |
| 38 | its permissions are printed and a line is read from the standard input. | |
| 39 | If that line begins with `y' the file is deleted, otherwise the file remains. | |
| 40 | No questions are asked and no errors are reported when the | |
| 41 | .B \-f | |
| 42 | (force) option is given. | |
| 43 | .PP | |
| 44 | If a designated file is a directory, | |
| 45 | an error comment is printed unless the optional argument | |
| 46 | .B \-r | |
| 47 | has been used. In that case, | |
| 48 | .I rm | |
| 49 | recursively deletes the entire contents of the specified directory, | |
| 50 | and the directory itself. | |
| 51 | .PP | |
| 52 | If the | |
| 53 | .B \-i | |
| 54 | (interactive) option is in effect, | |
| 55 | .I rm | |
| 56 | asks whether to delete each file, and, under | |
| 57 | .BR \-r , | |
| 58 | whether to examine each directory. | |
| 59 | .PP | |
| 60 | The null option | |
| 61 | .B \- | |
| 62 | indicates that all the arguments following it are to be treated as | |
| 63 | file names. This allows the specification of file names starting with | |
| 64 | a minus. | |
| 65 | .SH "SEE ALSO" | |
| 66 | rm(1), unlink(2), rmdir(2) |