rm(1p) — Linux manual page

PROLOG | NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | OPERANDS | STDIN | INPUT FILES | ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES | ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS | STDOUT | STDERR | OUTPUT FILES | EXTENDED DESCRIPTION | EXIT STATUS | CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS | APPLICATION USAGE | EXAMPLES | RATIONALE | FUTURE DIRECTIONS | SEE ALSO | COPYRIGHT

RM(1P)                  POSIX Programmer's Manual                 RM(1P)

PROLOG         top

       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.

NAME         top

       rm — remove directory entries

SYNOPSIS         top

       rm [-iRr] file...

       rm -f [-iRr] [file...]

DESCRIPTION         top

       The rm utility shall remove the directory entry specified by each
       file argument.

       If either of the files dot or dot-dot are specified as the
       basename portion of an operand (that is, the final pathname
       component) or if an operand resolves to the root directory, rm
       shall write a diagnostic message to standard error and do nothing
       more with such operands.

       For each file the following steps shall be taken:

        1. If the file does not exist:

            a. If the -f option is not specified, rm shall write a
               diagnostic message to standard error.

            b. Go on to any remaining files.

        2. If file is of type directory, the following steps shall be
           taken:

            a. If neither the -R option nor the -r option is specified,
               rm shall write a diagnostic message to standard error, do
               nothing more with file, and go on to any remaining files.

            b. If file is an empty directory, rm may skip to step 2d.
               If the -f option is not specified, and either the
               permissions of file do not permit writing and the
               standard input is a terminal or the -i option is
               specified, rm shall write a prompt to standard error and
               read a line from the standard input. If the response is
               not affirmative, rm shall do nothing more with the
               current file and go on to any remaining files.

            c. For each entry contained in file, other than dot or dot-
               dot, the four steps listed here (1 to 4) shall be taken
               with the entry as if it were a file operand. The rm
               utility shall not traverse directories by following
               symbolic links into other parts of the hierarchy, but
               shall remove the links themselves.

            d. If the -i option is specified, rm shall write a prompt to
               standard error and read a line from the standard input.
               If the response is not affirmative, rm shall do nothing
               more with the current file, and go on to any remaining
               files.

        3. If file is not of type directory, the -f option is not
           specified, and either the permissions of file do not permit
           writing and the standard input is a terminal or the -i option
           is specified, rm shall write a prompt to the standard error
           and read a line from the standard input. If the response is
           not affirmative, rm shall do nothing more with the current
           file and go on to any remaining files.

        4. If the current file is a directory, rm shall perform actions
           equivalent to the rmdir() function defined in the System
           Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2017 called with a pathname of
           the current file used as the path argument. If the current
           file is not a directory, rm shall perform actions equivalent
           to the unlink() function defined in the System Interfaces
           volume of POSIX.1‐2017 called with a pathname of the current
           file used as the path argument.

           If this fails for any reason, rm shall write a diagnostic
           message to standard error, do nothing more with the current
           file, and go on to any remaining files.

       The rm utility shall be able to descend to arbitrary depths in a
       file hierarchy, and shall not fail due to path length limitations
       (unless an operand specified by the user exceeds system
       limitations).

OPTIONS         top

       The rm utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of
       POSIX.1‐2017, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.

       The following options shall be supported:

       -f        Do not prompt for confirmation. Do not write diagnostic
                 messages or modify the exit status in the case of no
                 file operands, or in the case of operands that do not
                 exist. Any previous occurrences of the -i option shall
                 be ignored.

       -i        Prompt for confirmation as described previously. Any
                 previous occurrences of the -f option shall be ignored.

       -R        Remove file hierarchies. See the DESCRIPTION.

       -r        Equivalent to -R.

OPERANDS         top

       The following operand shall be supported:

       file      A pathname of a directory entry to be removed.

STDIN         top

       The standard input shall be used to read an input line in
       response to each prompt specified in the STDOUT section.
       Otherwise, the standard input shall not be used.

INPUT FILES         top

       None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES         top

       The following environment variables shall affect the execution of
       rm:

       LANG      Provide a default value for the internationalization
                 variables that are unset or null. (See the Base
                 Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section 8.2,
                 Internationalization Variables 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_COLLATE
                 Determine the locale for the behavior of ranges,
                 equivalence classes, and multi-character collating
                 elements used in the extended regular expression
                 defined for the yesexpr locale keyword in the
                 LC_MESSAGES category.

       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) and the behavior of character
                 classes within regular expressions used in the extended
                 regular expression defined for the yesexpr locale
                 keyword in the LC_MESSAGES category.

       LC_MESSAGES
                 Determine the locale used to process affirmative
                 responses, and the locale used to affect the format and
                 contents of diagnostic messages and prompts written to
                 standard error.

       NLSPATH   Determine the location of message catalogs for the
                 processing of LC_MESSAGES.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS         top

       Default.

STDOUT         top

       Not used.

STDERR         top

       Prompts shall be written to standard error under the conditions
       specified in the DESCRIPTION and OPTIONS sections. The prompts
       shall contain the file pathname, but their format is otherwise
       unspecified. The standard error also shall be used for diagnostic
       messages.

OUTPUT FILES         top

       None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION         top

       None.

EXIT STATUS         top

       The following exit values shall be returned:

        0    Each directory entry was successfully removed, unless its
             removal was canceled by a non-affirmative response to a
             prompt for confirmation.

       >0    An error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS         top

       Default.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE         top

       The rm utility is forbidden to remove the names dot and dot-dot
       in order to avoid the consequences of inadvertently doing
       something like:

           rm -r .*

       Some implementations do not permit the removal of the last link
       to an executable binary file that is being executed; see the
       [EBUSY] error in the unlink() function defined in the System
       Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2017. Thus, the rm utility can fail
       to remove such files.

       The -i option causes rm to prompt and read the standard input
       even if the standard input is not a terminal, but in the absence
       of -i the mode prompting is not done when the standard input is
       not a terminal.

EXAMPLES         top

        1. The following command:

               rm a.out core

           removes the directory entries: a.out and core.

        2. The following command:

               rm -Rf junk

           removes the directory junk and all its contents, without
           prompting.

RATIONALE         top

       For absolute clarity, paragraphs (2b) and (3) in the DESCRIPTION
       of rm describing the behavior when prompting for confirmation,
       should be interpreted in the following manner:

           if ((NOT f_option) AND
               ((not_writable AND input_is_terminal) OR i_option))

       The exact format of the interactive prompts is unspecified. Only
       the general nature of the contents of prompts are specified
       because implementations may desire more descriptive prompts than
       those used on historical implementations. Therefore, an
       application not using the -f option, or using the -i option,
       relies on the system to provide the most suitable dialog directly
       with the user, based on the behavior specified.

       The -r option is historical practice on all known systems. The
       synonym -R option is provided for consistency with the other
       utilities in this volume of POSIX.1‐2017 that provide options
       requesting recursive descent through the file hierarchy.

       The behavior of the -f option in historical versions of rm is
       inconsistent. In general, along with ``forcing'' the unlink
       without prompting for permission, it always causes diagnostic
       messages to be suppressed and the exit status to be unmodified
       for nonexistent operands and files that cannot be unlinked. In
       some versions, however, the -f option suppresses usage messages
       and system errors as well.  Suppressing such messages is not a
       service to either shell scripts or users.

       It is less clear that error messages regarding files that cannot
       be unlinked (removed) should be suppressed. Although this is
       historical practice, this volume of POSIX.1‐2017 does not permit
       the -f option to suppress such messages.

       When given the -r and -i options, historical versions of rm
       prompt the user twice for each directory, once before removing
       its contents and once before actually attempting to delete the
       directory entry that names it. This allows the user to ``prune''
       the file hierarchy walk. Historical versions of rm were
       inconsistent in that some did not do the former prompt for
       directories named on the command line and others had obscure
       prompting behavior when the -i option was specified and the
       permissions of the file did not permit writing. The POSIX Shell
       and Utilities rm differs little from historic practice, but does
       require that prompts be consistent. Historical versions of rm
       were also inconsistent in that prompts were done to both standard
       output and standard error. This volume of POSIX.1‐2017 requires
       that prompts be done to standard error, for consistency with cp
       and mv, and to allow historical extensions to rm that provide an
       option to list deleted files on standard output.

       The rm utility is required to descend to arbitrary depths so that
       any file hierarchy may be deleted. This means, for example, that
       the rm utility cannot run out of file descriptors during its
       descent (that is, if the number of file descriptors is limited,
       rm cannot be implemented in the historical fashion where one file
       descriptor is used per directory level). Also, rm is not
       permitted to fail because of path length restrictions, unless an
       operand specified by the user is longer than {PATH_MAX}.

       The rm utility removes symbolic links themselves, not the files
       they refer to, as a consequence of the dependence on the unlink()
       functionality, per the DESCRIPTION. When removing hierarchies
       with -r or -R, the prohibition on following symbolic links has to
       be made explicit.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS         top

       None.

SEE ALSO         top

       rmdir(1p)

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Chapter 8,
       Environment Variables, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines

       The System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2017, remove(3p),
       rmdir(3p), unlink(3p)

COPYRIGHT         top

       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic
       form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information
       Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The
       Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright
       (C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
       Engineers, Inc and The Open Group.  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.opengroup.org/unix/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.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .

IEEE/The Open Group               2017                            RM(1P)

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