1.\" Copyright (c) 1990 The Regents of the University of California. 2.\" All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" %sccs.include.redist.man% 5.\" 6.\" @(#)rm.1 6.6 (Berkeley) 03/10/91 7.\" 8.Dd 9.Dt RM 1 10.Os BSD 4.4 11.Sh NAME 12.Nm rm 13.Nd remove directory entries 14.Sh SYNOPSIS 15.Nm rm 16.Op Fl f Li \&| Fl i 17.Op Fl dRr 18.Ar file ... 19.Sh DESCRIPTION 20The 21.Nm rm 22utility attempts to remove the non-directory type files specified on the 23command line. 24If the permissions of the file do not permit writing, and the standard 25input device is a terminal, the user is prompted (on the standard error 26output) for confirmation. 27.Pp 28The options are as follows: 29.Tw 8n 30.Tp Fl d 31Attempt to remove directories as well as other types of files. 32.Tp Fl f 33Attempt to remove the files without prompting for confirmation, 34regardless of the file's permissions. 35If the file does not exist, do not display a diagnostic message or modify 36the exit status to reflect an error. 37The 38.Fl f 39option overrides any previous 40.Fl i 41options. 42.Tp Fl i 43Request confirmation before attempting to remove each file, regardless of 44the file's permissions, or whether or not the standard input device is a 45terminal. 46The 47.Fl i 48option overrides any previous 49.Fl f 50options. 51.Tp Fl R 52Attempt to remove the file hierarchy rooted in each file argument. 53The 54.Fl R 55option implies the 56.Fl d 57option. 58If the 59.Fl i 60option is specified, the user is prompted for confirmation before 61each directory's contents are processed (as well as before the attempt 62is made to remove the directory). 63If the user does not respond affirmatively, the file hierarchy rooted in 64that directory is skipped. 65.Pp 66.Tp Fl r 67Equivalent to 68.Fl R . 69.Tp 70.Pp 71The 72.Nm rm 73utility removes symbolic links, not the files referenced by the links. 74.Pp 75It is an error to attempt to remove the files ``.'' and ``..''. 76.Pp 77The 78.Nm rm 79utility exits 0 if all of the named files or file hierarchies were removed, 80or if the 81.Fl f 82option was specified and all of the existing files or file hierarchies were 83removed. 84If an error occurs, 85.Nm rm 86exits with a value >0. 87.Tp 88.Sh SEE ALSO 89.Xr rmdir 1 , 90.Xr unlink 2 , 91.Xr fts 3 92.Sh COMPATIBILITY 93The 94.Nm rm 95utility differs from historical implementations in that the 96.Fl f 97option only masks attempts to remove non-existent files instead of 98masking a large variety of errors. 99.Pp 100Also, historical BSD implementations prompted on the standard output, 101not the standard error output. 102.Sh STANDARDS 103The 104.Nm rm 105function is expected to be POSIX 1003.2 compatible. 106