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.\" $Id: rm.1,v 1.9 1997/04/09 05:04:43 mpp Exp $ 37.\" 38.Dd December 5, 1994 39.Dt RM 1 40.Os 41.Sh NAME 42.Nm rm 43.Nd remove directory entries 44.Sh SYNOPSIS 45.Nm rm 46.Op Fl f | Fl i 47.Op Fl dPRrW 48.Ar file ... 49.Sh DESCRIPTION 50The 51.Nm rm 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 flag 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 P 82Overwrite regular files before deleting them. 83Files are overwritten three times, first with the byte pattern 0xff, 84then 0x00, and then 0xff again, before they are deleted. 85.It Fl R 86Attempt to remove the file hierarchy rooted in each file argument. 87The 88.Fl R 89option implies the 90.Fl d 91option. 92If the 93.Fl i 94option is specified, the user is prompted for confirmation before 95each directory's contents are processed (as well as before the attempt 96is made to remove the directory). 97If the user does not respond affirmatively, the file hierarchy rooted in 98that directory is skipped. 99.Pp 100.It Fl r 101Equivalent to 102.Fl R . 103.It Fl W 104Attempts 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 rm 111utility removes symbolic links, not the files referenced by the links. 112.Pp 113It is an error to attempt to remove the files ``.'' and ``..''. 114.Pp 115The 116.Nm rm 117utility exits 0 if all of the named files or file hierarchies were removed, 118or if the 119.Fl f 120option was specified and all of the existing files or file hierarchies were 121removed. 122If an error occurs, 123.Nm rm 124exits with a value >0. 125.Sh NOTE 126The 127.Nm 128command uses 129.Xr getopt 3 130to parse its arguments, which allows it to accept 131the 132.Sq Li -- 133option which will cause it to stop processing flag options at that 134point. This will allow the removal of file names that begin 135with a dash 136.Pq Sq - . 137For example: 138.Dl rm -- -filename 139The same behavior can be obtained by using an absolute or relative 140path reference. For example: 141.Dl rm /home/user/-filename 142.Dl rm ./-filename 143This is useful for commands that do not use 144.Xr getopt 3 145to parse the command line arguments. 146.Sh SEE ALSO 147.Xr rmdir 1 , 148.Xr undelete 2 , 149.Xr unlink 2 , 150.Xr fts 3 , 151.Xr getopt 3 , 152.Xr symlink 7 153.Sh BUGS 154The 155.Fl P 156option assumes that the underlying file system is a fixed-block file 157system. 158UFS is a fixed-block file system, LFS is not. 159In addition, only regular files are overwritten, other types of files 160are not. 161.Pp 162No support exists for the 163.Xr undelete 2 164call in the kernel, so the 165.Fl W 166option is not yet implemented. 167.Sh COMPATIBILITY 168The 169.Nm rm 170utility differs from historical implementations in that the 171.Fl f 172option only masks attempts to remove non-existent files instead of 173masking a large variety of errors. 174.Pp 175Also, historical 176.Bx 177implementations prompted on the standard output, 178not the standard error output. 179.Sh STANDARDS 180The 181.Nm rm 182command is expected to be 183.St -p1003.2 184compatible. 185.Sh HISTORY 186A 187.Nm 188command appeared in 189.At v1 . 190