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 1.5 2004/11/05 19:09:53 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 dfiIPRrvW 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 I 85Request confirmation once if more than three files are being removed or if a 86directory is being recursively removed. 87This is a far less intrusive option than 88.Fl i 89yet provides almost the same level of protection against mistakes. 90.It Fl P 91Overwrite regular files before deleting them. 92Files are overwritten three times, first with the byte pattern 0xff, 93then 0x00, and then 0xff again, before they are deleted. 94.It Fl R 95Attempt to remove the file hierarchy rooted in each file argument. 96The 97.Fl R 98option implies the 99.Fl d 100option. 101If the 102.Fl i 103option is specified, the user is prompted for confirmation before 104each directory's contents are processed (as well as before the attempt 105is made to remove the directory). 106If the user does not respond affirmatively, the file hierarchy rooted in 107that directory is skipped. 108.Pp 109.It Fl r 110Equivalent to 111.Fl R . 112.It Fl v 113Be verbose when deleting files, showing them as they are removed. 114.It Fl W 115Attempt to undelete the named files. 116Currently, this option can only be used to recover 117files covered by whiteouts. 118.El 119.Pp 120The 121.Nm 122utility removes symbolic links, not the files referenced by the links. 123.Pp 124It is an error to attempt to remove the files 125.Dq .\& 126or 127.Dq .. . 128.Pp 129When the utility is called as 130.Nm unlink , 131only one argument, 132which must not be a directory, 133may be supplied. 134No options may be supplied in this simple mode of operation, 135which performs an 136.Xr unlink 2 137operation on the passed argument. 138.Pp 139The 140.Nm 141utility exits 0 if all of the named files or file hierarchies were removed, 142or if the 143.Fl f 144option was specified and all of the existing files or file hierarchies were 145removed. 146If an error occurs, 147.Nm 148exits with a value >0. 149.Sh NOTE 150The 151.Nm 152command uses 153.Xr getopt 3 154to parse its arguments, which allows it to accept 155the 156.Sq Li -- 157option which will cause it to stop processing flag options at that 158point. This will allow the removal of file names that begin 159with a dash 160.Pq Sq - . 161For example: 162.Dl rm -- -filename 163The same behavior can be obtained by using an absolute or relative 164path reference. For example: 165.Dl rm /home/user/-filename 166.Dl rm ./-filename 167.Sh SEE ALSO 168.Xr chflags 1 , 169.Xr rmdir 1 , 170.Xr undelete 2 , 171.Xr unlink 2 , 172.Xr fts 3 , 173.Xr getopt 3 , 174.Xr symlink 7 175.Sh BUGS 176The 177.Fl P 178option assumes that the underlying file system is a fixed-block file 179system. 180UFS is a fixed-block file system, LFS is not. 181In addition, only regular files are overwritten, other types of files 182are not. 183.Sh COMPATIBILITY 184The 185.Nm 186utility differs from historical implementations in that the 187.Fl f 188option only masks attempts to remove non-existent files instead of 189masking a large variety of errors. 190The 191.Fl v 192option is non-standard and its use in scripts is not recommended. 193.Pp 194Also, historical 195.Bx 196implementations prompted on the standard output, 197not the standard error output. 198.Sh STANDARDS 199The 200.Nm 201command conforms to 202.St -p1003.2 . 203.Pp 204The simplified 205.Nm unlink 206command conforms to 207.St -susv2 . 208.Sh HISTORY 209A 210.Nm 211command appeared in 212.At v1 . 213