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.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 16.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 17.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 18.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 19.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 20.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 21.\" without specific prior written permission. 22.\" 23.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 24.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 25.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 26.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 27.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 28.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 29.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 30.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 31.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 32.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 33.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 34.\" 35.\" @(#)rm.1 8.5 (Berkeley) 12/5/94 36.\" $FreeBSD$ 37.\" 38.Dd January 28, 1999 39.Dt RM 1 40.Os 41.Sh NAME 42.Nm rm , 43.Nm unlink 44.Nd remove directory entries 45.Sh SYNOPSIS 46.Nm 47.Op Fl dfiPRrvW 48.Ar file ... 49.Nm unlink 50.Ar file 51.Sh DESCRIPTION 52The 53.Nm 54utility attempts to remove the non-directory type files specified on the 55command line. 56If the permissions of the file do not permit writing, and the standard 57input device is a terminal, the user is prompted (on the standard error 58output) for confirmation. 59.Pp 60The options are as follows: 61.Bl -tag -width Fl 62.It Fl d 63Attempt to remove directories as well as other types of files. 64.It Fl f 65Attempt to remove the files without prompting for confirmation, 66regardless of the file's permissions. 67If the file does not exist, do not display a diagnostic message or modify 68the exit status to reflect an error. 69The 70.Fl f 71option overrides any previous 72.Fl i 73options. 74.It Fl i 75Request confirmation before attempting to remove each file, regardless of 76the file's permissions, or whether or not the standard input device is a 77terminal. 78The 79.Fl i 80option overrides any previous 81.Fl f 82options. 83.It Fl P 84Overwrite regular files before deleting them. 85Files are overwritten three times, first with the byte pattern 0xff, 86then 0x00, and then 0xff again, before they are deleted. 87.It Fl R 88Attempt to remove the file hierarchy rooted in each file argument. 89The 90.Fl R 91option implies the 92.Fl d 93option. 94If the 95.Fl i 96option is specified, the user is prompted for confirmation before 97each directory's contents are processed (as well as before the attempt 98is made to remove the directory). 99If the user does not respond affirmatively, the file hierarchy rooted in 100that directory is skipped. 101.Pp 102.It Fl r 103Equivalent to 104.Fl R . 105.It Fl v 106Be verbose when deleting files, showing them as they are removed. 107.It Fl W 108Attempt to undelete the named files. 109Currently, this option can only be used to recover 110files covered by whiteouts. 111.El 112.Pp 113The 114.Nm 115utility removes symbolic links, not the files referenced by the links. 116.Pp 117It is an error to attempt to remove the files 118.Dq .\& 119or 120.Dq .. . 121.Pp 122When the utility is called as 123.Nm unlink , 124only one argument, 125which must not be a directory, 126may be supplied. 127No options may be supplied in this simple mode of operation, 128which performs an 129.Xr unlink 2 130operation on the passed argument. 131.Pp 132The 133.Nm 134utility exits 0 if all of the named files or file hierarchies were removed, 135or if the 136.Fl f 137option was specified and all of the existing files or file hierarchies were 138removed. 139If an error occurs, 140.Nm 141exits with a value >0. 142.Sh NOTE 143The 144.Nm 145command uses 146.Xr getopt 3 147to parse its arguments, which allows it to accept 148the 149.Sq Li -- 150option which will cause it to stop processing flag options at that 151point. This will allow the removal of file names that begin 152with a dash 153.Pq Sq - . 154For example: 155.Dl rm -- -filename 156The same behavior can be obtained by using an absolute or relative 157path reference. For example: 158.Dl rm /home/user/-filename 159.Dl rm ./-filename 160.Sh SEE ALSO 161.Xr rmdir 1 , 162.Xr undelete 2 , 163.Xr unlink 2 , 164.Xr fts 3 , 165.Xr getopt 3 , 166.Xr symlink 7 167.Sh BUGS 168The 169.Fl P 170option assumes that the underlying file system is a fixed-block file 171system. 172UFS is a fixed-block file system, LFS is not. 173In addition, only regular files are overwritten, other types of files 174are not. 175.Sh COMPATIBILITY 176The 177.Nm 178utility differs from historical implementations in that the 179.Fl f 180option only masks attempts to remove non-existent files instead of 181masking a large variety of errors. 182The 183.Fl v 184option is non-standard and its use in scripts is not recommended. 185.Pp 186Also, historical 187.Bx 188implementations prompted on the standard output, 189not the standard error output. 190.Sh STANDARDS 191The 192.Nm 193command is almost 194.St -p1003.2 195compatible, except that 196.Tn POSIX 197requires 198.Nm 199to act like 200.Xr rmdir 1 201when the 202.Ar file 203specified is a directory. This implementation requires the 204.Fl d 205option if such behavior is desired. This follows the historical 206behavior of 207.Nm 208with respect to directories. 209.Pp 210The simplified 211.Nm unlink 212command conforms to 213.St -susv2 . 214.Sh HISTORY 215A 216.Nm 217command appeared in 218.At v1 . 219