xref: /freebsd/bin/rm/rm.1 (revision 7aa383846770374466b1dcb2cefd71bde9acf463)
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32.\"	@(#)rm.1	8.5 (Berkeley) 12/5/94
33.\" $FreeBSD$
34.\"
35.Dd December 26, 2006
36.Dt RM 1
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm rm ,
40.Nm unlink
41.Nd remove directory entries
42.Sh SYNOPSIS
43.Nm
44.Op Fl f | i
45.Op Fl dIPRrvW
46.Ar
47.Nm unlink
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
88Overwrite regular files before deleting them.
89Files are overwritten three times, first with the byte pattern 0xff,
90then 0x00, and then 0xff again, before they are deleted.
91Files with multiple links will not be overwritten nor deleted unless
92.Fl f
93is specified, a warning is generated instead.
94.Pp
95Specifying this flag for a read only file will cause
96.Nm
97to generate an error message and exit.
98The file will not be removed or overwritten.
99.It Fl R
100Attempt to remove the file hierarchy rooted in each
101.Ar file
102argument.
103The
104.Fl R
105option implies the
106.Fl d
107option.
108If the
109.Fl i
110option is specified, the user is prompted for confirmation before
111each directory's contents are processed (as well as before the attempt
112is made to remove the directory).
113If the user does not respond affirmatively, the file hierarchy rooted in
114that directory is skipped.
115.Pp
116.It Fl r
117Equivalent to
118.Fl R .
119.It Fl v
120Be verbose when deleting files, showing them as they are removed.
121.It Fl W
122Attempt to undelete the named files.
123Currently, this option can only be used to recover
124files covered by whiteouts in a union file system (see
125.Xr undelete 2 ) .
126.El
127.Pp
128The
129.Nm
130utility removes symbolic links, not the files referenced by the links.
131.Pp
132It is an error to attempt to remove the files
133.Pa / ,
134.Pa .\&
135or
136.Pa .. .
137.Pp
138When the utility is called as
139.Nm unlink ,
140only one argument,
141which must not be a directory,
142may be supplied.
143No options may be supplied in this simple mode of operation,
144which performs an
145.Xr unlink 2
146operation on the passed argument.
147.Sh EXIT STATUS
148The
149.Nm
150utility exits 0 if all of the named files or file hierarchies were removed,
151or if the
152.Fl f
153option was specified and all of the existing files or file hierarchies were
154removed.
155If an error occurs,
156.Nm
157exits with a value >0.
158.Sh NOTES
159The
160.Nm
161command uses
162.Xr getopt 3
163to parse its arguments, which allows it to accept
164the
165.Sq Li --
166option which will cause it to stop processing flag options at that
167point.
168This will allow the removal of file names that begin
169with a dash
170.Pq Sq - .
171For example:
172.Pp
173.Dl "rm -- -filename"
174.Pp
175The same behavior can be obtained by using an absolute or relative
176path reference.
177For example:
178.Pp
179.Dl "rm /home/user/-filename"
180.Dl "rm ./-filename"
181.Pp
182When
183.Fl P
184is specified with
185.Fl f
186the file will be overwritten and removed even if it has hard links.
187.Sh COMPATIBILITY
188The
189.Nm
190utility differs from historical implementations in that the
191.Fl f
192option only masks attempts to remove non-existent files instead of
193masking a large variety of errors.
194The
195.Fl v
196option is non-standard and its use in scripts is not recommended.
197.Pp
198Also, historical
199.Bx
200implementations prompted on the standard output,
201not the standard error output.
202.Sh SEE ALSO
203.Xr chflags 1 ,
204.Xr rmdir 1 ,
205.Xr undelete 2 ,
206.Xr unlink 2 ,
207.Xr fts 3 ,
208.Xr getopt 3 ,
209.Xr symlink 7
210.Sh STANDARDS
211The
212.Nm
213command conforms to
214.St -p1003.2 .
215.Pp
216The simplified
217.Nm unlink
218command conforms to
219.St -susv2 .
220.Sh HISTORY
221A
222.Nm
223command appeared in
224.At v1 .
225.Sh BUGS
226The
227.Fl P
228option assumes that the underlying file system is a fixed-block file
229system.
230UFS is a fixed-block file system, LFS is not.
231In addition, only regular files are overwritten, other types of files
232are not.
233