.\" 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 6.1 (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 ] [ .B \- ] 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 The null option .B \- indicates that all the arguments following it are to be treated as file names. This allows the specification of file names starting with a minus. .PP .I Rmdir removes entries for the named directories, which must be empty. .SH "SEE ALSO" rm(1), unlink(2), rmdir(2)