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.\" 4. 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.\" $FreeBSD$ 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