1.\"- 2.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1993 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.\" @(#)rmdir.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 5/31/93 33.\" $FreeBSD$ 34.\" 35.Dd March 15, 2013 36.Dt RMDIR 1 37.Os 38.Sh NAME 39.Nm rmdir 40.Nd remove directories 41.Sh SYNOPSIS 42.Nm 43.Op Fl pv 44.Ar directory ... 45.Sh DESCRIPTION 46The 47.Nm 48utility removes the directory entry specified by 49each 50.Ar directory 51argument, provided it is empty. 52.Pp 53Arguments are processed in the order given. 54In order to remove both a parent directory and a subdirectory 55of that parent, the subdirectory 56must be specified first so the parent directory 57is empty when 58.Nm 59tries to remove it. 60.Pp 61The following option is available: 62.Bl -tag -width indent 63.It Fl p 64Each 65.Ar directory 66argument is treated as a pathname of which all 67components will be removed, if they are empty, 68starting with the last most component. 69(See 70.Xr rm 1 71for fully non-discriminant recursive removal.) 72.It Fl v 73Be verbose, listing each directory as it is removed. 74.El 75.Sh EXIT STATUS 76The 77.Nm 78utility exits with one of the following values: 79.Bl -tag -width indent 80.It Li 0 81Each directory entry specified by a 82.Ar directory 83operand 84referred to an empty directory and was removed 85successfully. 86.It Li >0 87An error occurred. 88.El 89.Sh EXAMPLES 90Remove the directory 91.Pa foobar , 92if it is empty: 93.Pp 94.Dl $ rmdir foobar 95.Pp 96Remove all directories up to and including 97.Pa cow , 98stopping at the first non-empty directory (if any): 99.Pp 100.Dl $ rmdir -p cow/horse/monkey 101.Sh SEE ALSO 102.Xr rm 1 103.Sh STANDARDS 104The 105.Nm 106utility is expected to be 107.St -p1003.2 108compatible. 109.Sh HISTORY 110A 111.Nm 112command appeared in 113.At v1 . 114