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.\" %sccs.include.redist.roff% 8.\" 9.\" @(#)rm.1 8.5 (Berkeley) 12/05/94 10.\" 11.Dd 12.Dt RM 1 13.Os 14.Sh NAME 15.Nm rm 16.Nd remove directory entries 17.Sh SYNOPSIS 18.Nm rm 19.Op Fl f | Fl i 20.Op Fl dPRrW 21.Ar file ... 22.Sh DESCRIPTION 23The 24.Nm rm 25utility attempts to remove the non-directory type files specified on the 26command line. 27If the permissions of the file do not permit writing, and the standard 28input device is a terminal, the user is prompted (on the standard error 29output) for confirmation. 30.Pp 31The options are as follows: 32.Bl -tag -width flag 33.It Fl d 34Attempt to remove directories as well as other types of files. 35.It Fl f 36Attempt to remove the files without prompting for confirmation, 37regardless of the file's permissions. 38If the file does not exist, do not display a diagnostic message or modify 39the exit status to reflect an error. 40The 41.Fl f 42option overrides any previous 43.Fl i 44options. 45.It Fl i 46Request confirmation before attempting to remove each file, regardless of 47the file's permissions, or whether or not the standard input device is a 48terminal. 49The 50.Fl i 51option overrides any previous 52.Fl f 53options. 54.It Fl P 55Overwrite regular files before deleting them. 56Files are overwritten three times, first with the byte pattern 0xff, 57then 0x00, and then 0xff again, before they are deleted. 58.It Fl R 59Attempt to remove the file hierarchy rooted in each file argument. 60The 61.Fl R 62option implies the 63.Fl d 64option. 65If the 66.Fl i 67option is specified, the user is prompted for confirmation before 68each directory's contents are processed (as well as before the attempt 69is made to remove the directory). 70If the user does not respond affirmatively, the file hierarchy rooted in 71that directory is skipped. 72.Pp 73.It Fl r 74Equivalent to 75.Fl R . 76.It Fl W 77Attempts to undelete the named files. 78Currently, this option can only be used to recover 79files covered by whiteouts. 80.El 81.Pp 82The 83.Nm rm 84utility removes symbolic links, not the files referenced by the links. 85.Pp 86It is an error to attempt to remove the files ``.'' and ``..''. 87.Pp 88The 89.Nm rm 90utility exits 0 if all of the named files or file hierarchies were removed, 91or if the 92.Fl f 93option was specified and all of the existing files or file hierarchies were 94removed. 95If an error occurs, 96.Nm rm 97exits with a value >0. 98.Sh SEE ALSO 99.Xr rmdir 1 , 100.Xr undelete 2 , 101.Xr unlink 2 , 102.Xr fts 3 , 103.Xr symlink 7 104.Sh BUGS 105The 106.Fl P 107option assumes that the underlying file system is a fixed-block file 108system. 109UFS is a fixed-block file system, LFS is not. 110In addition, only regular files are overwritten, other types of files 111are not. 112.Sh COMPATIBILITY 113The 114.Nm rm 115utility differs from historical implementations in that the 116.Fl f 117option only masks attempts to remove non-existent files instead of 118masking a large variety of errors. 119.Pp 120Also, historical 121.Bx 122implementations prompted on the standard output, 123not the standard error output. 124.Sh STANDARDS 125The 126.Nm rm 127command is expected to be 128.St -p1003.2 129compatible. 130