1.\"- 2.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1993, 1994 3.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 4.\" 5.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by 6.\" the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. 7.\" 8.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 9.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 10.\" are met: 11.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 12.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 13.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 14.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 15.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 16.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 17.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 18.\" without specific prior written permission. 19.\" 20.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 21.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 22.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 23.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 24.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 25.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 26.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 27.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 28.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 29.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 30.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 31.\" 32.\" @(#)rm.1 8.5 (Berkeley) 12/5/94 33.\" 34.Dd November 10, 2018 35.Dt RM 1 36.Os 37.Sh NAME 38.Nm rm , 39.Nm unlink 40.Nd remove directory entries 41.Sh SYNOPSIS 42.Nm 43.Op Fl f | i 44.Op Fl dIRrvWx 45.Ar 46.Nm unlink 47.Op Fl - 48.Ar file 49.Sh DESCRIPTION 50The 51.Nm 52utility attempts to remove the non-directory type files specified on the 53command line. 54If the permissions of the file do not permit writing, and the standard 55input device is a terminal, the user is prompted (on the standard error 56output) for confirmation. 57.Pp 58The options are as follows: 59.Bl -tag -width indent 60.It Fl d 61Attempt to remove directories as well as other types of files. 62.It Fl f 63Attempt to remove the files without prompting for confirmation, 64regardless of the file's permissions. 65If the file does not exist, do not display a diagnostic message or modify 66the exit status to reflect an error. 67The 68.Fl f 69option overrides any previous 70.Fl i 71options. 72.It Fl i 73Request confirmation before attempting to remove each file, regardless of 74the file's permissions, or whether or not the standard input device is a 75terminal. 76The 77.Fl i 78option overrides any previous 79.Fl f 80options. 81.It Fl I 82Request confirmation once if more than three files are being removed or if a 83directory is being recursively removed. 84This is a far less intrusive option than 85.Fl i 86yet provides almost the same level of protection against mistakes. 87.It Fl P 88This flag has no effect. 89It is kept only for backwards compatibility with 90.Bx 4.4 Lite2 . 91.It Fl R 92Attempt to remove the file hierarchy rooted in each 93.Ar file 94argument. 95The 96.Fl R 97option implies the 98.Fl d 99option. 100If the 101.Fl i 102option is specified, the user is prompted for confirmation before 103each directory's contents are processed (as well as before the attempt 104is made to remove the directory). 105If the user does not respond affirmatively, the file hierarchy rooted in 106that directory is skipped. 107.It Fl r 108Equivalent to 109.Fl R . 110.It Fl v 111Be verbose when deleting files, showing them as they are removed. 112.It Fl W 113Attempt to undelete the named files. 114Currently, this option can only be used to recover 115files covered by whiteouts in a union file system (see 116.Xr undelete 2 ) . 117.It Fl x 118When removing a hierarchy, do not cross mount points. 119.El 120.Pp 121The 122.Nm 123utility removes symbolic links, not the files referenced by the links. 124.Pp 125It is an error to attempt to remove the files 126.Pa / , 127.Pa .\& 128or 129.Pa .. . 130.Pp 131When the utility is called as 132.Nm unlink , 133only one argument, 134which must not be a directory, 135may be supplied. 136No options may be supplied in this simple mode of operation, 137which performs an 138.Xr unlink 2 139operation on the passed argument. 140However, the usual option-end delimiter, 141.Fl - , 142may optionally precede the argument. 143.Sh EXIT STATUS 144The 145.Nm 146utility exits 0 if all of the named files or file hierarchies were removed, 147or if the 148.Fl f 149option was specified and all of the existing files or file hierarchies were 150removed. 151If an error occurs, 152.Nm 153exits with a value >0. 154.Sh NOTES 155The 156.Nm 157command uses 158.Xr getopt 3 159to parse its arguments, which allows it to accept 160the 161.Sq Li -- 162option which will cause it to stop processing flag options at that 163point. 164This will allow the removal of file names that begin 165with a dash 166.Pq Sq - . 167For example: 168.Pp 169.Dl "rm -- -filename" 170.Pp 171The same behavior can be obtained by using an absolute or relative 172path reference. 173For example: 174.Pp 175.Dl "rm /home/user/-filename" 176.Dl "rm ./-filename" 177.Sh EXAMPLES 178Recursively remove all files contained within the 179.Pa foobar 180directory hierarchy: 181.Pp 182.Dl $ rm -rf foobar 183.Pp 184Any of these commands will remove the file 185.Pa -f : 186.Bd -literal -offset indent 187$ rm -- -f 188$ rm ./-f 189$ unlink -f 190.Ed 191.Sh COMPATIBILITY 192The 193.Nm 194utility differs from historical implementations in that the 195.Fl f 196option only masks attempts to remove non-existent files instead of 197masking a large variety of errors. 198The 199.Fl v 200option is non-standard and its use in scripts is not recommended. 201.Pp 202Also, historical 203.Bx 204implementations prompted on the standard output, 205not the standard error output. 206.Pp 207The 208.Fl P 209option does not have any effect as of 210.Fx 13 211and may be removed in the future. 212.Sh SEE ALSO 213.Xr chflags 1 , 214.Xr rmdir 1 , 215.Xr undelete 2 , 216.Xr unlink 2 , 217.Xr fts 3 , 218.Xr getopt 3 , 219.Xr symlink 7 220.Sh STANDARDS 221The 222.Nm 223command conforms to 224.St -p1003.1-2013 . 225.Pp 226The simplified 227.Nm unlink 228command conforms to 229.St -susv2 . 230.Sh HISTORY 231A 232.Nm 233command appeared in 234.At v1 . 235