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.\" $Id$ 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. (UNIMPLEMENTED) 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 126.Nm rm 127use 128.Xr getopt 3 129parsing routine. Getopt accept a 130.Sq Li -- 131argument, which stop reading options, anything after this 132is not an option. 133So 134.Nm rm 135handle files whose names begins with a 136.Sq Li - . 137Example: 138 139``$ rm -- -filename''. 140.Sh SEE ALSO 141.Xr rmdir 1 , 142.Xr undelete 2 , 143.Xr unlink 2 , 144.Xr fts 3 , 145.Xr getopt 3 , 146.Xr symlink 7 147.Sh BUGS 148The 149.Fl P 150option assumes that the underlying file system is a fixed-block file 151system. 152UFS is a fixed-block file system, LFS is not. 153In addition, only regular files are overwritten, other types of files 154are not. 155.Pp 156No support exists for the 157.Xr undelete 2 158call in the kernel, so the 159.Fl W 160option is not yet implemented. 161.Sh COMPATIBILITY 162The 163.Nm rm 164utility differs from historical implementations in that the 165.Fl f 166option only masks attempts to remove non-existent files instead of 167masking a large variety of errors. 168.Pp 169Also, historical 170.Bx 171implementations prompted on the standard output, 172not the standard error output. 173.Sh STANDARDS 174The 175.Nm rm 176command is expected to be 177.St -p1003.2 178compatible. 179.Sh HISTORY 180A 181.Nm 182command appeared in 183.At v1 . 184