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 8.2 (Berkeley) 04/18/94 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 dPRr 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.El 77.Pp 78The 79.Nm rm 80utility removes symbolic links, not the files referenced by the links. 81.Pp 82It is an error to attempt to remove the files ``.'' and ``..''. 83.Pp 84The 85.Nm rm 86utility exits 0 if all of the named files or file hierarchies were removed, 87or if the 88.Fl f 89option was specified and all of the existing files or file hierarchies were 90removed. 91If an error occurs, 92.Nm rm 93exits with a value >0. 94.Sh SEE ALSO 95.Xr rmdir 1 , 96.Xr unlink 2 , 97.Xr fts 3 , 98.Xr symlink 7 99.Sh BUGS 100The 101.Fl P 102option assumes that the underlying file system is a fixed-block file 103system. 104UFS is a fixed-block file system, LFS is not. 105In addition, only regular files are overwritten, other types of files 106are not. 107.Sh COMPATIBILITY 108The 109.Nm rm 110utility differs from historical implementations in that the 111.Fl f 112option only masks attempts to remove non-existent files instead of 113masking a large variety of errors. 114.Pp 115Also, historical 116.Bx 117implementations prompted on the standard output, 118not the standard error output. 119.Sh STANDARDS 120The 121.Nm rm 122command is expected to be 123.St -p1003.2 124compatible. 125