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. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 16.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 17.\" without specific prior written permission. 18.\" 19.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 20.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 21.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 22.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 23.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 24.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 25.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 26.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 27.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 28.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 29.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 30.\" 31.\" @(#)rm.1 8.5 (Berkeley) 12/5/94 32.\" $FreeBSD: src/bin/rm/rm.1,v 1.19.2.6 2003/02/04 22:10:42 trhodes Exp $ 33.\" 34.Dd April 15, 2013 35.Dt RM 1 36.Os 37.Sh NAME 38.Nm rm , 39.Nm unlink 40.Nd remove directory entries 41.Sh SYNOPSIS 42.Nm 43.Op Fl dfiIPRrvWx 44.Ar 45.Nm unlink 46.Ar file 47.Sh DESCRIPTION 48The 49.Nm 50utility attempts to remove the non-directory type files specified on the 51command line. 52If the permissions of the file do not permit writing, and the standard 53input device is a terminal, the user is prompted (on the standard error 54output) for confirmation. 55.Pp 56The options are as follows: 57.Bl -tag -width Fl 58.It Fl d 59Attempt to remove directories as well as other types of files. 60.It Fl f 61Attempt to remove the files without prompting for confirmation, 62regardless of the file's permissions. 63If the file does not exist, do not display a diagnostic message or modify 64the exit status to reflect an error. 65The 66.Fl f 67option overrides any previous 68.Fl i 69options. 70.It Fl i 71Request confirmation before attempting to remove each file, regardless of 72the file's permissions, or whether or not the standard input device is a 73terminal. 74The 75.Fl i 76option overrides any previous 77.Fl f 78options. 79.It Fl I 80Request confirmation once if more than three files are being removed or if a 81directory is being recursively removed. This option only applies when the 82.Nm 83utility is run in the foreground. 84This is a far less intrusive option than 85.Fl i 86yet provides almost the same level of protection against mistakes. 87.It Fl P 88Overwrite regular files before deleting them. 89Files are overwritten three times, first with the byte pattern 0xff, 90then 0x00, and then 0xff again, before they are deleted. 91.Pp 92A file with a link count greater than one will neither be overwritten nor 93removed, and a warning will be issued. 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.It Fl r 109Equivalent to 110.Fl R . 111.It Fl v 112Be verbose when deleting files, showing them as they are removed. 113.It Fl W 114Attempt to undelete the named files. 115Currently, this option can only be used to recover 116files covered by whiteouts. 117.It Fl x 118When removing a hierarchy, don't cross mount points. 119.El 120.Pp 121The 122.Nm 123utility removes symbolic links, not the files referenced by the links. 124.Pp 125It is an error to attempt to remove the files 126.Dq .\& 127or 128.Dq .. . 129.Pp 130When the utility is called as 131.Nm unlink , 132only one argument, 133which must not be a directory, 134may be supplied. 135No options may be supplied in this simple mode of operation, 136which performs an 137.Xr unlink 2 138operation on the passed argument. 139.Pp 140The 141.Nm 142utility exits 0 if all of the named files or file hierarchies were removed, 143or if the 144.Fl f 145option was specified and all of the existing files or file hierarchies were 146removed. 147If an error occurs, 148.Nm 149exits with a value >0. 150.Pp 151If 152.Nm 153receives a 154.Dv SIGINFO 155(see the 156.Cm status 157argument for 158.Xr stty 1 ) 159signal, the current file or directory being removed 160will be written to standard error. 161.Sh NOTE 162The 163.Nm 164command uses 165.Xr getopt 3 166to parse its arguments, which allows it to accept 167the 168.Sq Li -- 169option which will cause it to stop processing flag options at that 170point. This will allow the removal of file names that begin 171with a dash 172.Pq Sq - . 173For example: 174.Dl rm -- -filename 175The same behavior can be obtained by using an absolute or relative 176path reference. For example: 177.Dl rm /home/user/-filename 178.Dl rm ./-filename 179.Sh COMPATIBILITY 180The 181.Nm 182utility differs from historical implementations in that the 183.Fl f 184option only masks attempts to remove non-existent files instead of 185masking a large variety of errors. 186The 187.Fl v 188option is non-standard and its use in scripts is not recommended. 189.Pp 190Also, historical 191.Bx 192implementations prompted on the standard output, 193not the standard error output. 194.Sh SEE ALSO 195.Xr chflags 1 , 196.Xr rmdir 1 , 197.Xr undelete 2 , 198.Xr unlink 2 , 199.Xr fts 3 , 200.Xr getopt 3 , 201.Xr symlink 7 202.Sh STANDARDS 203The 204.Nm 205command conforms to 206.St -p1003.2 . 207.Pp 208The simplified 209.Nm unlink 210command conforms to 211.St -susv2 . 212.Sh HISTORY 213A 214.Nm 215command appeared in 216.At v1 . 217.Sh BUGS 218The 219.Fl P 220option assumes that the underlying file system is a fixed-block file 221system. 222.Xr UFS 5 223is a fixed-block file system, LFS is not. 224In addition, only regular files are overwritten, other types of files 225are not. Hardlinked regular files will not be overwritten or removed, 226possibly leading to unintended behavior. It is arguable which is the MORE 227unintended behavior. 228