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PROLOG | NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | OPERANDS | STDIN | INPUT FILES | ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES | ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS | STDOUT | STDERR | OUTPUT FILES | EXTENDED DESCRIPTION | EXIT STATUS | CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS | APPLICATION USAGE | EXAMPLES | RATIONALE | FUTURE DIRECTIONS | SEE ALSO | COPYRIGHT |
RM(1P) POSIX Programmer's Manual RM(1P)
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux
implementation of this interface may differ (consult the
corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or
the interface may not be implemented on Linux.
rm — remove directory entries
rm [−fiRr] file...
The rm utility shall remove the directory entry specified by each
file argument.
If either of the files dot or dot-dot are specified as the basename
portion of an operand (that is, the final pathname component) or if
an operand resolves to the root directory, rm shall write a
diagnostic message to standard error and do nothing more with such
operands.
For each file the following steps shall be taken:
1. If the file does not exist:
a. If the −f option is not specified, rm shall write a
diagnostic message to standard error.
b. Go on to any remaining files.
2. If file is of type directory, the following steps shall be taken:
a. If neither the −R option nor the −r option is specified, rm
shall write a diagnostic message to standard error, do
nothing more with file, and go on to any remaining files.
b. If the −f option is not specified, and either the permissions
of file do not permit writing and the standard input is a
terminal or the −i option is specified, rm shall write a
prompt to standard error and read a line from the standard
input. If the response is not affirmative, rm shall do
nothing more with the current file and go on to any remaining
files.
c. For each entry contained in file, other than dot or dot-dot,
the four steps listed here (1 to 4) shall be taken with the
entry as if it were a file operand. The rm utility shall not
traverse directories by following symbolic links into other
parts of the hierarchy, but shall remove the links
themselves.
d. If the −i option is specified, rm shall write a prompt to
standard error and read a line from the standard input. If
the response is not affirmative, rm shall do nothing more
with the current file, and go on to any remaining files.
3. If file is not of type directory, the −f option is not specified,
and either the permissions of file do not permit writing and the
standard input is a terminal or the −i option is specified, rm
shall write a prompt to the standard error and read a line from
the standard input. If the response is not affirmative, rm shall
do nothing more with the current file and go on to any remaining
files.
4. If the current file is a directory, rm shall perform actions
equivalent to the rmdir() function defined in the System
Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2008 called with a pathname of the
current file used as the path argument. If the current file is
not a directory, rm shall perform actions equivalent to the
unlink() function defined in the System Interfaces volume of
POSIX.1‐2008 called with a pathname of the current file used as
the path argument.
If this fails for any reason, rm shall write a diagnostic message
to standard error, do nothing more with the current file, and go
on to any remaining files.
The rm utility shall be able to descend to arbitrary depths in a file
hierarchy, and shall not fail due to path length limitations (unless
an operand specified by the user exceeds system limitations).
The rm utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of
POSIX.1‐2008, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.
The following options shall be supported:
−f Do not prompt for confirmation. Do not write diagnostic
messages or modify the exit status in the case of
nonexistent operands. Any previous occurrences of the −i
option shall be ignored.
−i Prompt for confirmation as described previously. Any
previous occurrences of the −f option shall be ignored.
−R Remove file hierarchies. See the DESCRIPTION.
−r Equivalent to −R.
The following operand shall be supported:
file A pathname of a directory entry to be removed.
The standard input shall be used to read an input line in response to
each prompt specified in the STDOUT section. Otherwise, the standard
input shall not be used.
None.
The following environment variables shall affect the execution of rm:
LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization
variables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions
volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Section 8.2, Internationalization
Variables for the precedence of internationalization
variables used to determine the values of locale
categories.)
LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of
all the other internationalization variables.
LC_COLLATE
Determine the locale for the behavior of ranges,
equivalence classes, and multi-character collating elements
used in the extended regular expression defined for the
yesexpr locale keyword in the LC_MESSAGES category.
LC_CTYPE Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of
bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte
as opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments) and the
behavior of character classes within regular expressions
used in the extended regular expression defined for the
yesexpr locale keyword in the LC_MESSAGES category.
LC_MESSAGES
Determine the locale used to process affirmative responses,
and the locale used to affect the format and contents of
diagnostic messages and prompts written to standard error.
NLSPATH Determine the location of message catalogs for the
processing of LC_MESSAGES.
Default.
Not used.
Prompts shall be written to standard error under the conditions
specified in the DESCRIPTION and OPTIONS sections. The prompts shall
contain the file pathname, but their format is otherwise unspecified.
The standard error also shall be used for diagnostic messages.
None.
None.
The following exit values shall be returned:
0 Each directory entry was successfully removed, unless its
removal was canceled by a non-affirmative response to a prompt
for confirmation.
>0 An error occurred.
Default.
The following sections are informative.
The rm utility is forbidden to remove the names dot and dot-dot in
order to avoid the consequences of inadvertently doing something
like:
rm −r .*
Some implementations do not permit the removal of the last link to an
executable binary file that is being executed; see the [EBUSY] error
in the unlink() function defined in the System Interfaces volume of
POSIX.1‐2008. Thus, the rm utility can fail to remove such files.
The −i option causes rm to prompt and read the standard input even if
the standard input is not a terminal, but in the absence of −i the
mode prompting is not done when the standard input is not a terminal.
1. The following command:
rm a.out core
removes the directory entries: a.out and core.
2. The following command:
rm −Rf junk
removes the directory junk and all its contents, without
prompting.
For absolute clarity, paragraphs (2b) and (3) in the DESCRIPTION of
rm describing the behavior when prompting for confirmation, should be
interpreted in the following manner:
if ((NOT f_option) AND
((not_writable AND input_is_terminal) OR i_option))
The exact format of the interactive prompts is unspecified. Only the
general nature of the contents of prompts are specified because
implementations may desire more descriptive prompts than those used
on historical implementations. Therefore, an application not using
the −f option, or using the −i option, relies on the system to
provide the most suitable dialog directly with the user, based on the
behavior specified.
The −r option is historical practice on all known systems. The
synonym −R option is provided for consistency with the other
utilities in this volume of POSIX.1‐2008 that provide options
requesting recursive descent through the file hierarchy.
The behavior of the −f option in historical versions of rm is
inconsistent. In general, along with ``forcing'' the unlink without
prompting for permission, it always causes diagnostic messages to be
suppressed and the exit status to be unmodified for nonexistent
operands and files that cannot be unlinked. In some versions,
however, the −f option suppresses usage messages and system errors as
well. Suppressing such messages is not a service to either shell
scripts or users.
It is less clear that error messages regarding files that cannot be
unlinked (removed) should be suppressed. Although this is historical
practice, this volume of POSIX.1‐2008 does not permit the −f option
to suppress such messages.
When given the −r and −i options, historical versions of rm prompt
the user twice for each directory, once before removing its contents
and once before actually attempting to delete the directory entry
that names it. This allows the user to ``prune'' the file hierarchy
walk. Historical versions of rm were inconsistent in that some did
not do the former prompt for directories named on the command line
and others had obscure prompting behavior when the −i option was
specified and the permissions of the file did not permit writing. The
POSIX Shell and Utilities rm differs little from historic practice,
but does require that prompts be consistent. Historical versions of
rm were also inconsistent in that prompts were done to both standard
output and standard error. This volume of POSIX.1‐2008 requires that
prompts be done to standard error, for consistency with cp and mv,
and to allow historical extensions to rm that provide an option to
list deleted files on standard output.
The rm utility is required to descend to arbitrary depths so that any
file hierarchy may be deleted. This means, for example, that the rm
utility cannot run out of file descriptors during its descent (that
is, if the number of file descriptors is limited, rm cannot be
implemented in the historical fashion where one file descriptor is
used per directory level). Also, rm is not permitted to fail because
of path length restrictions, unless an operand specified by the user
is longer than {PATH_MAX}.
The rm utility removes symbolic links themselves, not the files they
refer to, as a consequence of the dependence on the unlink()
functionality, per the DESCRIPTION. When removing hierarchies with −r
or −R, the prohibition on following symbolic links has to be made
explicit.
None.
rmdir(1p)
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Chapter 8, Environment
Variables, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines
The System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2008, remove(3p), rmdir(3p),
unlink(3p)
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information
Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open
Group Base Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open
Group. (This is POSIX.1-2008 with the 2013 Technical Corrigendum 1
applied.) In the event of any discrepancy between this version and
the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and
The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original
Standard can be obtained online at http://www.unix.org/online.html .
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are
most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the
source files to man page format. To report such errors, see
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .
IEEE/The Open Group 2013 RM(1P)
Pages that refer to this page: ln(1p), mkdir(1p), rmdir(1p), unlink(1p)