1.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1993, 1994 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by 5.\" the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. 6.\" 7.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 8.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 9.\" are met: 10.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 11.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 12.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 13.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 14.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 15.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 16.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 17.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 18.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 19.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 20.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 21.\" without specific prior written permission. 22.\" 23.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 24.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 25.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 26.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 27.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 28.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 29.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 30.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 31.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 32.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 33.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 34.\" 35.\" @(#)rm.1 8.5 (Berkeley) 12/5/94 36.\" $FreeBSD: src/bin/rm/rm.1,v 1.19.2.6 2003/02/04 22:10:42 trhodes Exp $ 37.\" $DragonFly: src/bin/rm/rm.1,v 1.2 2003/06/17 04:22:50 dillon Exp $ 38.\" 39.Dd January 28, 1999 40.Dt RM 1 41.Os 42.Sh NAME 43.Nm rm , 44.Nm unlink 45.Nd remove directory entries 46.Sh SYNOPSIS 47.Nm 48.Op Fl dfiPRrvW 49.Ar 50.Nm unlink 51.Ar file 52.Sh DESCRIPTION 53The 54.Nm 55utility attempts to remove the non-directory type files specified on the 56command line. 57If the permissions of the file do not permit writing, and the standard 58input device is a terminal, the user is prompted (on the standard error 59output) for confirmation. 60.Pp 61The options are as follows: 62.Bl -tag -width Fl 63.It Fl d 64Attempt to remove directories as well as other types of files. 65.It Fl f 66Attempt to remove the files without prompting for confirmation, 67regardless of the file's permissions. 68If the file does not exist, do not display a diagnostic message or modify 69the exit status to reflect an error. 70The 71.Fl f 72option overrides any previous 73.Fl i 74options. 75.It Fl i 76Request confirmation before attempting to remove each file, regardless of 77the file's permissions, or whether or not the standard input device is a 78terminal. 79The 80.Fl i 81option overrides any previous 82.Fl f 83options. 84.It Fl P 85Overwrite regular files before deleting them. 86Files are overwritten three times, first with the byte pattern 0xff, 87then 0x00, and then 0xff again, before they are deleted. 88.It Fl R 89Attempt to remove the file hierarchy rooted in each file argument. 90The 91.Fl R 92option implies the 93.Fl d 94option. 95If the 96.Fl i 97option is specified, the user is prompted for confirmation before 98each directory's contents are processed (as well as before the attempt 99is made to remove the directory). 100If the user does not respond affirmatively, the file hierarchy rooted in 101that directory is skipped. 102.Pp 103.It Fl r 104Equivalent to 105.Fl R . 106.It Fl v 107Be verbose when deleting files, showing them as they are removed. 108.It Fl W 109Attempt to undelete the named files. 110Currently, this option can only be used to recover 111files covered by whiteouts. 112.El 113.Pp 114The 115.Nm 116utility removes symbolic links, not the files referenced by the links. 117.Pp 118It is an error to attempt to remove the files 119.Dq .\& 120or 121.Dq .. . 122.Pp 123When the utility is called as 124.Nm unlink , 125only one argument, 126which must not be a directory, 127may be supplied. 128No options may be supplied in this simple mode of operation, 129which performs an 130.Xr unlink 2 131operation on the passed argument. 132.Pp 133The 134.Nm 135utility exits 0 if all of the named files or file hierarchies were removed, 136or if the 137.Fl f 138option was specified and all of the existing files or file hierarchies were 139removed. 140If an error occurs, 141.Nm 142exits with a value >0. 143.Sh NOTE 144The 145.Nm 146command uses 147.Xr getopt 3 148to parse its arguments, which allows it to accept 149the 150.Sq Li -- 151option which will cause it to stop processing flag options at that 152point. This will allow the removal of file names that begin 153with a dash 154.Pq Sq - . 155For example: 156.Dl rm -- -filename 157The same behavior can be obtained by using an absolute or relative 158path reference. For example: 159.Dl rm /home/user/-filename 160.Dl rm ./-filename 161.Sh SEE ALSO 162.Xr chflags 1 , 163.Xr rmdir 1 , 164.Xr undelete 2 , 165.Xr unlink 2 , 166.Xr fts 3 , 167.Xr getopt 3 , 168.Xr symlink 7 169.Sh BUGS 170The 171.Fl P 172option assumes that the underlying file system is a fixed-block file 173system. 174UFS is a fixed-block file system, LFS is not. 175In addition, only regular files are overwritten, other types of files 176are not. 177.Sh COMPATIBILITY 178The 179.Nm 180utility differs from historical implementations in that the 181.Fl f 182option only masks attempts to remove non-existent files instead of 183masking a large variety of errors. 184The 185.Fl v 186option is non-standard and its use in scripts is not recommended. 187.Pp 188Also, historical 189.Bx 190implementations prompted on the standard output, 191not the standard error output. 192.Sh STANDARDS 193The 194.Nm 195command conforms to 196.St -p1003.2 . 197.Pp 198The simplified 199.Nm unlink 200command conforms to 201.St -susv2 . 202.Sh HISTORY 203A 204.Nm 205command appeared in 206.At v1 . 207