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.\" 3. 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 November 10, 2018 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 dIRrvWx 46.Ar 47.Nm unlink 48.Op Fl - 49.Ar file 50.Sh DESCRIPTION 51The 52.Nm 53utility attempts to remove the non-directory type files specified on the 54command line. 55If the permissions of the file do not permit writing, and the standard 56input device is a terminal, the user is prompted (on the standard error 57output) for confirmation. 58.Pp 59The options are as follows: 60.Bl -tag -width indent 61.It Fl d 62Attempt to remove directories as well as other types of files. 63.It Fl f 64Attempt to remove the files without prompting for confirmation, 65regardless of the file's permissions. 66If the file does not exist, do not display a diagnostic message or modify 67the exit status to reflect an error. 68The 69.Fl f 70option overrides any previous 71.Fl i 72options. 73.It Fl i 74Request confirmation before attempting to remove each file, regardless of 75the file's permissions, or whether or not the standard input device is a 76terminal. 77The 78.Fl i 79option overrides any previous 80.Fl f 81options. 82.It Fl I 83Request confirmation once if more than three files are being removed or if a 84directory is being recursively removed. 85This is a far less intrusive option than 86.Fl i 87yet provides almost the same level of protection against mistakes. 88.It Fl P 89This flag has no effect. 90It is kept only for backwards compatibility with 91.Bx 4.4 Lite2 . 92.It Fl R 93Attempt to remove the file hierarchy rooted in each 94.Ar file 95argument. 96The 97.Fl R 98option implies the 99.Fl d 100option. 101If the 102.Fl i 103option is specified, the user is prompted for confirmation before 104each directory's contents are processed (as well as before the attempt 105is made to remove the directory). 106If the user does not respond affirmatively, the file hierarchy rooted in 107that directory is skipped. 108.It Fl r 109Equivalent to 110.Fl R . 111.It Fl v 112Be verbose when deleting files, showing them as they are removed. 113.It Fl W 114Attempt to undelete the named files. 115Currently, this option can only be used to recover 116files covered by whiteouts in a union file system (see 117.Xr undelete 2 ) . 118.It Fl x 119When removing a hierarchy, do not cross mount points. 120.El 121.Pp 122The 123.Nm 124utility removes symbolic links, not the files referenced by the links. 125.Pp 126It is an error to attempt to remove the files 127.Pa / , 128.Pa .\& 129or 130.Pa .. . 131.Pp 132When the utility is called as 133.Nm unlink , 134only one argument, 135which must not be a directory, 136may be supplied. 137No options may be supplied in this simple mode of operation, 138which performs an 139.Xr unlink 2 140operation on the passed argument. 141However, the usual option-end delimiter, 142.Fl - , 143may optionally precede the argument. 144.Sh EXIT STATUS 145The 146.Nm 147utility exits 0 if all of the named files or file hierarchies were removed, 148or if the 149.Fl f 150option was specified and all of the existing files or file hierarchies were 151removed. 152If an error occurs, 153.Nm 154exits with a value >0. 155.Sh NOTES 156The 157.Nm 158command uses 159.Xr getopt 3 160to parse its arguments, which allows it to accept 161the 162.Sq Li -- 163option which will cause it to stop processing flag options at that 164point. 165This will allow the removal of file names that begin 166with a dash 167.Pq Sq - . 168For example: 169.Pp 170.Dl "rm -- -filename" 171.Pp 172The same behavior can be obtained by using an absolute or relative 173path reference. 174For example: 175.Pp 176.Dl "rm /home/user/-filename" 177.Dl "rm ./-filename" 178.Sh EXAMPLES 179Recursively remove all files contained within the 180.Pa foobar 181directory hierarchy: 182.Pp 183.Dl $ rm -rf foobar 184.Pp 185Any of these commands will remove the file 186.Pa -f : 187.Bd -literal -offset indent 188$ rm -- -f 189$ rm ./-f 190$ unlink -f 191.Ed 192.Sh COMPATIBILITY 193The 194.Nm 195utility differs from historical implementations in that the 196.Fl f 197option only masks attempts to remove non-existent files instead of 198masking a large variety of errors. 199The 200.Fl v 201option is non-standard and its use in scripts is not recommended. 202.Pp 203Also, historical 204.Bx 205implementations prompted on the standard output, 206not the standard error output. 207.Pp 208The 209.Fl P 210option does not have any effect as of 211.Fx 13 212and may be removed in the future. 213.Sh SEE ALSO 214.Xr chflags 1 , 215.Xr rmdir 1 , 216.Xr undelete 2 , 217.Xr unlink 2 , 218.Xr fts 3 , 219.Xr getopt 3 , 220.Xr symlink 7 221.Sh STANDARDS 222The 223.Nm 224command conforms to 225.St -p1003.1-2013 . 226.Pp 227The simplified 228.Nm unlink 229command conforms to 230.St -susv2 . 231.Sh HISTORY 232A 233.Nm 234command appeared in 235.At v1 . 236