RM(1)                      POSIX Programmer's Manual                     RM(1)



PROLOG
       This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The OS
       implementation of this interface may differ (consult the corresponding
       OS manual page for details of OS behavior), or the interface may not be
       implemented on OS.

NAME
       rm -- remove directory entries

SYNOPSIS
       rm [[-iRr]] file...

       rm -f [[-iRr]] [[file...]]

DESCRIPTION
       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 file is an empty directory, rm may skip to step 2d.  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.1-2017 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.1-2017 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).

OPTIONS
       The rm utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of
       POSIX.1-2017, 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 no file
                 operands, or in the case of operands that do not exist. 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.

OPERANDS
       The following operand shall be supported:

       file      A pathname of a directory entry to be removed.

STDIN
       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.

INPUT FILES
       None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       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.1-2017, 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.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
       Default.

STDOUT
       Not used.

STDERR
       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.

OUTPUT FILES
       None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
       None.

EXIT STATUS
       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.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
       Default.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE
       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.1-2017. 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.

EXAMPLES
        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.

RATIONALE
       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.1-2017 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.1-2017 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.1-2017 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.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS
       None.

SEE ALSO
       rmdir

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1-2017, Chapter _8, Environment
       Variables, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines

       The System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1-2017, remove(), rmdir(),
       unlink()

COPYRIGHT
       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
       from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information Technology --
       Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
       Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C) 2018 by the
       Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open
       Group.  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.opengroup.org/unix/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                  2017                                RM(1)
