rm(1)							      General Commands Manual							     rm(1)

NAME

       rm - remove files or directories

SYNOPSIS

       file ...

DESCRIPTION

       The  command removes the entries for one or more files from a directory.  If an entry was the last link to the file, the file is destroyed.
       Removal of a file requires write and search (execute) permission in its directory, but no permissions on the file itself.  However, if  the
       sticky  bit is set on the directory containing the file, only the owner of the file, the owner of the directory, or a user having appropri-
       ate privileges can remove the file.

       If a user does not have write permission for a file to be removed and standard input is a terminal, a prompt containing the file  name  and
       its permissions is printed requesting that the removal of the file be confirmed (see Access Control Lists below).  A line is then read from
       standard input.	If that line begins with the file is deleted; otherwise, the file remains.  No questions are  asked  when  the	option	is
       given or if standard input is not a terminal.

       If  file is of type directory, and the option is not specified, and either the permissions of file do not permit writing and standard input
       is a terminal or the option is specified, writes a prompt to standard error and reads a line from standard input.  If the response does not
       begin with it does nothing more with the current file and goes on to any remaining files.

       If  file is a symbolic link, then only the symbolic link is removed. The file or directory pointed to by the symbolic link is not affected.
       If any of the intermediate path components of file happens to be a symbolic link, then follows the symbolic link and removes the file.

   Options
       recognizes the following options:

	      Force each file or directory to be removed
		     without prompting for confirmation, regardless of the permissions of the entry.  This option also suppresses diagnostic  mes-
		     sages regarding nonexistent operands.

		     This option does not suppress any diagnostic messages other than those regarding nonexistent operands.  To suppress all error
		     message and interactive prompts, the option should be used while redirecting standard error output to

		     This option ignores any previous occurrence of the option.

	      Write a prompt to standard error
		     requesting confirmation before removing each entry.

		     This option ignores any previous occurrence of the option.

	      For each argument that is a directory, this option causes
		     to recursively delete the entire contents of that directory before removing the directory itself.	When used  in  conjunction
		     with  the	option,  asks  whether	to  examine each directory before interactively removing files in that directory and again
		     afterward to confirm removing the directory itself.

		     The option will descend to arbitrary depths in a file hierarchy and will not fail due to path length limitations  unless  the
		     length of file name, specified by the user exceeds system limitations.

	      Equivalent to

   Access Control Lists
       If  a  file  has optional ACL entries, displays a plus sign after the file's permissions.  The permissions shown summarize the file's value
       returned by (see stat(2)).  See also acl(5).

EXTERNAL INFLUENCES

   Environment Variables
       provides a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null. If is unset or null, the default value of "C"  (see
       lang(5))  is  used.  If	any  of the internationalization variables contains an invalid setting, will behave as if all internationalization
       variables are set to "C".  See environ(5).

       If set to a non-empty string value, overrides the values of all the other internationalization variables.

       determines the interpretation of file names as single and/or multi-byte characters, the classification of characters as printable, and  the
       characters matched by character class expressions in regular expressions.

       determines  the	locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error and informa-
       tive messages written to standard output.

       determines the location of message catalogues for the processing of

   International Code Set Support
       Single- and multibyte character code sets are supported.

DIAGNOSTICS

       Generally self-explanatory.  Note that the option does not suppress all diagnostic messages.

       It is forbidden to remove the file in order to avoid the consequences of using a command such as:

       If a designated file is a directory, an error comment is printed unless the or option is used.

RETURN VALUE

       exits with one of the following values:

	      If the option is not specified, 0 is returned only if all the named directory entries (the arguments specified in the  command)  are
		     removed.

		     If  the option is specified, then all the existing named directory entries are removed. If any of the named directory entries
		     are non-existent, still returns a zero.

	      An error occurred.

EXAMPLES

       Remove files with a prompt for verification:

       Remove all the files in a directory:

       Note that the previous command removes files only, and does not remove any directories in

       Remove a file in the current directory whose name starts with or or some other character that is special to the shell:

	      etc.

       Remove a file in the current directory whose name starts with some strange (usually nonprinting, invisible) character or perhaps has spaces
       at the beginning or end of the filename, prompting for confirmation:

       If is not unique in the directory, enter when each of the other files is prompted.

       A powerful and dangerous command to remove a directory is:

       or

       which  removes  all files and directories from without any prompting for verification to remove the files or the directories.  This command
       should only be used when you are absolutely certain that all the files and directories in as well as itself are to be removed.

DEPENDENCIES

   NFS
       does not display a plus sign to indicate the existence of optional access control list entries when asking for confirmation before removing
       a networked file.

SEE ALSO

       rmdir(1), unlink(2), acl(5).

STANDARDS CONFORMANCE

																	     rm(1)