aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/bin/rm/rm.1
blob: 1c7ec8bf0b4c571220090859b73d3911000ba06b (plain) (blame)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
.\"-
.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1993, 1994
.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
.\" the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
.\"
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
.\"    without specific prior written permission.
.\"
.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
.\"
.\"	@(#)rm.1	8.5 (Berkeley) 12/5/94
.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.Dd October 28, 2004
.Dt RM 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm rm ,
.Nm unlink
.Nd remove directory entries
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl dfiIPRrvW
.Ar
.Nm unlink
.Ar file
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility attempts to remove the non-directory type files specified on the
command line.
If the permissions of the file do not permit writing, and the standard
input device is a terminal, the user is prompted (on the standard error
output) for confirmation.
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width Fl
.It Fl d
Attempt to remove directories as well as other types of files.
.It Fl f
Attempt to remove the files without prompting for confirmation,
regardless of the file's permissions.
If the file does not exist, do not display a diagnostic message or modify
the exit status to reflect an error.
The
.Fl f
option overrides any previous
.Fl i
options.
.It Fl i
Request confirmation before attempting to remove each file, regardless of
the file's permissions, or whether or not the standard input device is a
terminal.
The
.Fl i
option overrides any previous
.Fl f
options.
.It Fl I
Request confirmation once if more than three files are being removed or if a
directory is being recursively removed.
This is a far less intrusive option than
.Fl i
yet provides almost the same level of protection against mistakes.
.It Fl P
Overwrite regular files before deleting them.
Files are overwritten three times, first with the byte pattern 0xff,
then 0x00, and then 0xff again, before they are deleted.
.It Fl R
Attempt to remove the file hierarchy rooted in each file argument.
The
.Fl R
option implies the
.Fl d
option.
If the
.Fl i
option is specified, the user is prompted for confirmation before
each directory's contents are processed (as well as before the attempt
is made to remove the directory).
If the user does not respond affirmatively, the file hierarchy rooted in
that directory is skipped.
.Pp
.It Fl r
Equivalent to
.Fl R .
.It Fl v
Be verbose when deleting files, showing them as they are removed.
.It Fl W
Attempt to undelete the named files.
Currently, this option can only be used to recover
files covered by whiteouts.
.El
.Pp
The
.Nm
utility removes symbolic links, not the files referenced by the links.
.Pp
It is an error to attempt to remove the files
.Pa / ,
.Pa .\&
or
.Pa .. .
.Pp
When the utility is called as
.Nm unlink ,
only one argument,
which must not be a directory,
may be supplied.
No options may be supplied in this simple mode of operation,
which performs an
.Xr unlink 2
operation on the passed argument.
.Pp
The
.Nm
utility exits 0 if all of the named files or file hierarchies were removed,
or if the
.Fl f
option was specified and all of the existing files or file hierarchies were
removed.
If an error occurs,
.Nm
exits with a value >0.
.Sh NOTE
The
.Nm
command uses
.Xr getopt 3
to parse its arguments, which allows it to accept
the
.Sq Li --
option which will cause it to stop processing flag options at that
point.
This will allow the removal of file names that begin
with a dash
.Pq Sq - .
For example:
.Dl rm -- -filename
The same behavior can be obtained by using an absolute or relative
path reference.
For example:
.Dl rm /home/user/-filename
.Dl rm ./-filename
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr chflags 1 ,
.Xr rmdir 1 ,
.Xr undelete 2 ,
.Xr unlink 2 ,
.Xr fts 3 ,
.Xr getopt 3 ,
.Xr symlink 7
.Sh BUGS
The
.Fl P
option assumes that the underlying file system is a fixed-block file
system.
UFS is a fixed-block file system, LFS is not.
In addition, only regular files are overwritten, other types of files
are not.
.Sh COMPATIBILITY
The
.Nm
utility differs from historical implementations in that the
.Fl f
option only masks attempts to remove non-existent files instead of
masking a large variety of errors.
The
.Fl v
option is non-standard and its use in scripts is not recommended.
.Pp
Also, historical
.Bx
implementations prompted on the standard output,
not the standard error output.
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Nm
command conforms to
.St -p1003.2 .
.Pp
The simplified
.Nm unlink
command conforms to
.St -susv2 .
.Sh HISTORY
A
.Nm
command appeared in
.At v1 .