hi, i understand that rmdir will only remove direcotry when it is empty but are there options which will also remove non-empty directories? i went to man rmdir but only find the option -p? i am on solaris. thanks

You could use rm -R instead. This will remove the directory as well as any files and subdirectories as long as they are not in use. Be carefull though, make sure you specify the correct directory or you can remove a lot of stuff quickly.

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.