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.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.It Fl x 119When removing a hierarchy, don't cross mount points. 120.El 121.Pp 122The 123.Nm 124utility removes symbolic links, not the files referenced by the links. 125.Pp 126It is an error to attempt to remove the files 127.Dq .\& 128or 129.Dq .. . 130.Pp 131When the utility is called as 132.Nm unlink , 133only one argument, 134which must not be a directory, 135may be supplied. 136No options may be supplied in this simple mode of operation, 137which performs an 138.Xr unlink 2 139operation on the passed argument. 140.Pp 141The 142.Nm 143utility exits 0 if all of the named files or file hierarchies were removed, 144or if the 145.Fl f 146option was specified and all of the existing files or file hierarchies were 147removed. 148If an error occurs, 149.Nm 150exits with a value >0. 151.Pp 152If 153.Nm 154receives a 155.Dv SIGINFO 156(see the 157.Cm status 158argument for 159.Xr stty 1 ) 160signal, the current file or directory being removed 161will be written to standard error. 162.Sh NOTE 163The 164.Nm 165command uses 166.Xr getopt 3 167to parse its arguments, which allows it to accept 168the 169.Sq Li -- 170option which will cause it to stop processing flag options at that 171point. This will allow the removal of file names that begin 172with a dash 173.Pq Sq - . 174For example: 175.Dl rm -- -filename 176The same behavior can be obtained by using an absolute or relative 177path reference. For example: 178.Dl rm /home/user/-filename 179.Dl rm ./-filename 180.Sh COMPATIBILITY 181The 182.Nm 183utility differs from historical implementations in that the 184.Fl f 185option only masks attempts to remove non-existent files instead of 186masking a large variety of errors. 187The 188.Fl v 189option is non-standard and its use in scripts is not recommended. 190.Pp 191Also, historical 192.Bx 193implementations prompted on the standard output, 194not the standard error output. 195.Sh SEE ALSO 196.Xr chflags 1 , 197.Xr rmdir 1 , 198.Xr undelete 2 , 199.Xr unlink 2 , 200.Xr fts 3 , 201.Xr getopt 3 , 202.Xr symlink 7 203.Sh STANDARDS 204The 205.Nm 206command conforms to 207.St -p1003.2 . 208.Pp 209The simplified 210.Nm unlink 211command conforms to 212.St -susv2 . 213.Sh HISTORY 214A 215.Nm 216command appeared in 217.At v1 . 218.Sh BUGS 219The 220.Fl P 221option assumes that the underlying file system is a fixed-block file 222system. 223.Xr UFS 5 224is a fixed-block file system, LFS is not. 225In addition, only regular files are overwritten, other types of files 226are not. Hardlinked regular files will not be overwritten or removed, 227possibly leading to unintended behavior. It is arguable which is the MORE 228unintended behavior. 229