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Full Discussion: rmdir a non-empty directory.
Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers rmdir a non-empty directory. Post 32944 by indo1144 on Wednesday 11th of December 2002 06:44:13 AM
Old 12-11-2002
Re: rmdir a non-empty directory.
You could also do a:

rm -rf <target>

The -r and -R (see previous reply from TioTony) parameter are the same and will make it recursively travel down any subdirectory it finds.
The -f makes sure you are not prompted for confirmation (handy if there are lots of files and directories inside the target-directory).

Same warning applies here... Be careful when using this. Re-read your commandline and make sure you're in the right directory!

Most of the time, when using a powerful command like this, I use the full path + directoryname, just to be sure.
 

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LEARN ABOUT SUSE

rmdir

RMDIR(1)							   User Commands							  RMDIR(1)

NAME

       rmdir - remove empty directories

SYNOPSIS

       rmdir [OPTION]... DIRECTORY...

DESCRIPTION

       Remove the DIRECTORY(ies), if they are empty.

       --ignore-fail-on-non-empty

	      ignore each failure that is solely because a directory

	      is non-empty

       -p, --parents
	      remove DIRECTORY and its ancestors; e.g., `rmdir -p a/b/c' is similar to `rmdir a/b/c a/b a'

       -v, --verbose
	      output a diagnostic for every directory processed

       --help display this help and exit

       --version
	      output version information and exit

AUTHOR

       Written by David MacKenzie.

REPORTING BUGS

       Report rmdir bugs to bug-coreutils@gnu.org
       GNU coreutils home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
       General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.  License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
       This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.  There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO

       rmdir(2)

       The  full  documentation  for rmdir is maintained as a Texinfo manual.  If the info and rmdir programs are properly installed at your site,
       the command

	      info coreutils 'rmdir invocation'

       should give you access to the complete manual.

GNU coreutils 7.1						     July 2010								  RMDIR(1)
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