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- NAME
-
rm - remove files
- SYNOPSIS
-
rm [-dfirvR] [-directory] [-force] [-interactive]
[-recursive]
[-help] [-version] [-verbose] name...
- DESCRIPTION
-
This documentation is no longer being maintained and may be inaccurate
or incomplete. The Texinfo documentation is now the authoritative
source.
This manual page documents the GNU version of rm. rm removes each
specified file. By default, it does not remove directories. If a file
is unwritable, the standard input is a tty, and the -f or -force
option is not given, rm prompts the user for whether to remove the
file. If the response does not begin with `y' or `Y', the file is
skipped.
GNU rm, like every program that uses the getopt function to parse
its arguments, lets you use the - option to indicate that all following
arguments are non-options. To remove a file called `-f' in the current
directory, you could type either
rm - -f
or
rm ./-f
The Unix rm program's use of a single `-' for this purpose predates
the development of the getopt standard syntax.
- OPTIONS
-
- -d, -directory
- Remove directories with `unlink' instead of `rmdir',
and don't require a directory to be empty before trying to unlink
it. Only works for the super-user. Because unlinking a directory causes
any files in the deleted directory to become unreferenced, it is wise
to fsck the filesystem after doing this.
- -f, -force
- Ignore nonexistent files and never prompt the user.
- -i, -interactive
- Prompt whether to remove each file. If the response
does not begin with `y' or `Y', the file is skipped.
- -r, -R,
- -recursive Remove the contents of directories recursively.
- -v, -verbose
- Print the name of each file before removing it.
- -help
- Print a usage message on standard output and exit successfully.
- -version
- Print version information on standard output then exit
successfully
- EXAMPLES
-
joe@localhost $ ls -l
-rw-rw-rw- 1 joe joe 0 Mar 26 19:22 firstfile
-rw-rw-rw- 1 joe joe 0 Mar 26 19:22 fourfile
-rw-rw-rw- 1 joe joe 0 Mar 26 19:22 lastfile
-rw-rw-rw- 1 joe joe 0 Mar 26 19:22 onefile
joe@localhost $ rm onefile
rm: remove `onefile'? y
joe@localhost $ ls -l
-rw-rw-rw- 1 joe joe 0 Mar 26 19:22 firstfile
-rw-rw-rw- 1 joe joe 0 Mar 26 19:22 fourfile
-rw-rw-rw- 1 joe joe 0 Mar 26 19:22 lastfile
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