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.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 8.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 9.\" are met: 10.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 11.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 12.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 13.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 14.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 15.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 16.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 17.\" without specific prior written permission. 18.\" 19.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 20.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 21.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 22.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 23.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 24.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 25.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 26.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 27.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 28.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 29.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 30.\" 31.\" @(#)rm.1 8.5 (Berkeley) 12/5/94 32.\" $FreeBSD$ 33.\" 34.Dd January 28, 1999 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 dfiPRrvW 44.Ar 45.Nm unlink 46.Ar file 47.Sh DESCRIPTION 48The 49.Nm 50utility attempts to remove the non-directory type files specified on the 51command line. 52If the permissions of the file do not permit writing, and the standard 53input device is a terminal, the user is prompted (on the standard error 54output) for confirmation. 55.Pp 56The options are as follows: 57.Bl -tag -width Fl 58.It Fl d 59Attempt to remove directories as well as other types of files. 60.It Fl f 61Attempt to remove the files without prompting for confirmation, 62regardless of the file's permissions. 63If the file does not exist, do not display a diagnostic message or modify 64the exit status to reflect an error. 65The 66.Fl f 67option overrides any previous 68.Fl i 69options. 70.It Fl i 71Request confirmation before attempting to remove each file, regardless of 72the file's permissions, or whether or not the standard input device is a 73terminal. 74The 75.Fl i 76option overrides any previous 77.Fl f 78options. 79.It Fl P 80Overwrite regular files before deleting them. 81Files are overwritten three times, first with the byte pattern 0xff, 82then 0x00, and then 0xff again, before they are deleted. 83.It Fl R 84Attempt to remove the file hierarchy rooted in each file argument. 85The 86.Fl R 87option implies the 88.Fl d 89option. 90If the 91.Fl i 92option is specified, the user is prompted for confirmation before 93each directory's contents are processed (as well as before the attempt 94is made to remove the directory). 95If the user does not respond affirmatively, the file hierarchy rooted in 96that directory is skipped. 97.Pp 98.It Fl r 99Equivalent to 100.Fl R . 101.It Fl v 102Be verbose when deleting files, showing them as they are removed. 103.It Fl W 104Attempt to undelete the named files. 105Currently, this option can only be used to recover 106files covered by whiteouts. 107.El 108.Pp 109The 110.Nm 111utility removes symbolic links, not the files referenced by the links. 112.Pp 113It is an error to attempt to remove the files 114.Dq .\& 115or 116.Dq .. . 117.Pp 118When the utility is called as 119.Nm unlink , 120only one argument, 121which must not be a directory, 122may be supplied. 123No options may be supplied in this simple mode of operation, 124which performs an 125.Xr unlink 2 126operation on the passed argument. 127.Pp 128The 129.Nm 130utility exits 0 if all of the named files or file hierarchies were removed, 131or if the 132.Fl f 133option was specified and all of the existing files or file hierarchies were 134removed. 135If an error occurs, 136.Nm 137exits with a value >0. 138.Sh NOTE 139The 140.Nm 141command uses 142.Xr getopt 3 143to parse its arguments, which allows it to accept 144the 145.Sq Li -- 146option which will cause it to stop processing flag options at that 147point. 148This will allow the removal of file names that begin 149with a dash 150.Pq Sq - . 151For example: 152.Dl rm -- -filename 153The same behavior can be obtained by using an absolute or relative 154path reference. 155For example: 156.Dl rm /home/user/-filename 157.Dl rm ./-filename 158.Sh SEE ALSO 159.Xr chflags 1 , 160.Xr rmdir 1 , 161.Xr undelete 2 , 162.Xr unlink 2 , 163.Xr fts 3 , 164.Xr getopt 3 , 165.Xr symlink 7 166.Sh BUGS 167The 168.Fl P 169option assumes that the underlying file system is a fixed-block file 170system. 171UFS is a fixed-block file system, LFS is not. 172In addition, only regular files are overwritten, other types of files 173are not. 174.Sh COMPATIBILITY 175The 176.Nm 177utility differs from historical implementations in that the 178.Fl f 179option only masks attempts to remove non-existent files instead of 180masking a large variety of errors. 181The 182.Fl v 183option is non-standard and its use in scripts is not recommended. 184.Pp 185Also, historical 186.Bx 187implementations prompted on the standard output, 188not the standard error output. 189.Sh STANDARDS 190The 191.Nm 192command conforms to 193.St -p1003.2 . 194.Pp 195The simplified 196.Nm unlink 197command conforms to 198.St -susv2 . 199.Sh HISTORY 200A 201.Nm 202command appeared in 203.At v1 . 204