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

PROLOG

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

NAME

       rm - remove directory entries

SYNOPSIS

       rm [-fiRr] 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), 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 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 hier-
	       archy, 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 IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 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 IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 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 IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, 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 nonexistent operands.  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
	      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_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 for the processing of affirmative responses 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

       Prompts shall be written to standard error under the conditions specified in the DESCRIPTION and OPTIONS sections. The prompts  shall  con-
       tain 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     All of the named directory entries for which rm performed actions equivalent to the rmdir() or unlink() functions were removed.

       >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 IEEE Std 1003.1-2001. 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 imple-
       mentations 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 IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 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 IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 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.  His-
       torical 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 incon-
       sistent in that prompts were done to both standard output and standard error. This volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 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 imple-
       mented 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() function-
       ality, 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 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								    RM(1P)