RMDIR(P) POSIX Programmer's Manual RMDIR(P)
NAME
rmdir - remove directories
SYNOPSIS
rmdir [-p] dir...
DESCRIPTION
The rmdir utility shall remove the directory entry specified by each dir operand.
For each dir operand, the rmdir utility shall perform actions equivalent to the rmdir() function called with the dir operand as its only
argument.
Directories shall be processed in the order specified. If a directory and a subdirectory of that directory are specified in a single invo-
cation of the rmdir utility, the application shall specify the subdirectory before the parent directory so that the parent directory will
be empty when the rmdir utility tries to remove it.
OPTIONS
The rmdir utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.
The following option shall be supported:
-p Remove all directories in a pathname. For each dir operand:
1. The directory entry it names shall be removed.
2. If the dir operand includes more than one pathname component, effects equivalent to the following command shall occur:
rmdir -p $(dirname dir)
OPERANDS
The following operand shall be supported:
dir A pathname of an empty directory to be removed.
STDIN
Not used.
INPUT FILES
None.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables shall affect the execution of rmdir:
LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions volume of
IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, 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_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).
LC_MESSAGES
Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error.
NLSPATH
Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES .
ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
Default.
STDOUT
Not used.
STDERR
The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
OUTPUT FILES
None.
EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
None.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values shall be returned:
0 Each directory entry specified by a dir operand was removed successfully.
>0 An error occurred.
CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
Default.
The following sections are informative.
APPLICATION USAGE
The definition of an empty directory is one that contains, at most, directory entries for dot and dot-dot.
EXAMPLES
If a directory a in the current directory is empty except it contains a directory b and a/b is empty except it contains a directory c:
rmdir -p a/b/c
removes all three directories.
RATIONALE
On historical System V systems, the -p option also caused a message to be written to the standard output. The message indicated whether the
whole path was removed or whether part of the path remained for some reason. The STDERR section requires this diagnostic when the entire
path specified by a dir operand is not removed, but does not allow the status message reporting success to be written as a diagnostic.
The rmdir utility on System V also included a -s option that suppressed the informational message output by the -p option. This option has
been omitted because the informational message is not specified by this volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.
SEE ALSO
rm , the System Interfaces volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, remove(), rmdir(), unlink()
COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Information Technol-
ogy -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 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 .
IEEE
/The Open Group 2003 RMDIR(P)