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 8.3 (Berkeley) 07/29/94 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 77Removes a whiteout. 78.El 79.Pp 80The 81.Nm rm 82utility removes symbolic links, not the files referenced by the links. 83.Pp 84It is an error to attempt to remove the files ``.'' and ``..''. 85.Pp 86The 87.Nm rm 88utility exits 0 if all of the named files or file hierarchies were removed, 89or if the 90.Fl f 91option was specified and all of the existing files or file hierarchies were 92removed. 93If an error occurs, 94.Nm rm 95exits with a value >0. 96.Sh SEE ALSO 97.Xr rmdir 1 , 98.Xr unlink 2 , 99.Xr unwhiteout 2 , 100.Xr fts 3 , 101.Xr symlink 7 102.Sh BUGS 103The 104.Fl P 105option assumes that the underlying file system is a fixed-block file 106system. 107UFS is a fixed-block file system, LFS is not. 108In addition, only regular files are overwritten, other types of files 109are not. 110.Sh COMPATIBILITY 111The 112.Nm rm 113utility differs from historical implementations in that the 114.Fl f 115option only masks attempts to remove non-existent files instead of 116masking a large variety of errors. 117.Pp 118Also, historical 119.Bx 120implementations prompted on the standard output, 121not the standard error output. 122.Sh STANDARDS 123The 124.Nm rm 125command is expected to be 126.St -p1003.2 127compatible. 128