xref: /original-bsd/bin/rmdir/rmdir.1 (revision 155be1a3)
1.\" Copyright (c) 1990 The Regents of the University of California.
2.\" 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.\"	@(#)rmdir.1	6.6 (Berkeley) 07/27/91
10.\"
11.Dd
12.Dt RMDIR 1
13.Os
14.Sh NAME
15.Nm rmdir
16.Nd remove directories
17.Sh SYNOPSIS
18.Nm rmdir
19.\" .Op Fl p
20.Ar directory ...
21.Sh DESCRIPTION
22The rmdir utility removes the directory entry specified by
23each
24.Ar directory
25argument, provided it is empty.
26.Pp
27Arguments are processed in the order given.
28In order to remove both a parent directory and a subdirectory
29of that parent, the subdirectory
30must be specified first so the parent directory
31is empty when
32.Nm rmdir
33tries to remove it.
34.\" .Pp
35.\" The following option is available:
36.\" .Bl -tag -width Ds
37.\" .It Fl p
38.\" Each
39.\" .Ar directory
40.\" argument is treated as a pathname of which all
41.\" components will be removed, if they are empty,
42.\" starting with the last most component.
43.\" (See
44.\" .Xr rm 1
45.\" for fully non-discriminant recursive removal).
46.\" .El
47.Pp
48The
49.Nm rmdir
50utility exits with one of the following values:
51.Bl -tag -width flag
52.It Li \&0
53Each directory entry specified by a dir operand
54referred to an empty directory and was removed
55successfully.
56.It Li \&>\&0
57An error occurred.
58.El
59.Sh SEE ALSO
60.Xr rm 1
61.Sh STANDARDS
62The
63.Nm rmdir
64command is expected to be
65.St -p1003.2
66compatible.
67