FASTRM(8)						      System Manager's Manual							 FASTRM(8)

NAME

       fastrm - quickly remove a set of files

SYNOPSIS

       fastrm [ -d ] [ -e ] [ -uN ] [ -sM ] [ -cI ] base_directory

DESCRIPTION

       Fastrm  reads  a list of files, one per line, from its standard input and removes them.	If a file is not an absolute pathname, it is taken
       relative to the directory specified on the command line.  The base_directory parameter must be a simple absolute pathname --  that  is,	it
       must not contain any ``/./'' or ``/../'' references.

       Fastrm  is  designed  to  be  faster  than the typical ``| xargs rm'' pipeline.	For example, fastrm will usually chdir(2) into a directory
       before removing files from it.  If the input is sorted, this means that most files to be removed will be simple names.

       Fastrm assumes that its input is valid and that it is safe to just do an unlink(2) call for each item to be removed.  As a safety  measure,
       if fastrm is run by root it will first stat(2) the item to make sure that it is not a directory before unlinking it.

OPTIONS

       -d     If  the  ``-d'' flag is used then no files are removed.  Instead a list of the files to be removed, in debug form, is printed on the
	      standard output.	Each line contains either the current directory of fastrm at the time it would do the unlink, and  then  the  path
	      name  it	would  pass to unlink(2) as two fields separated by white space and a ``/'', or the absolute path name (a single field) of
	      files it would unlink using the absolute path name.

       -e     If the ``-e'' flag is used, fastrm will treat an empty input file (stdin) as an error.  This is most useful when fastrm is last in a
	      pipeline after a preceding sort(1) as if the sort fails, there will usually be no output to become input of fastrm.

       -u     If  the ``-u'' flag is used, then fastrm makes further assumptions about its work environment; in particular, that there are no sym-
	      bolic links in the target tree.  This flag also suggests that it is probably faster to reference the path ``../../../'' rather  than
	      start  from  the	root  and  come down.  (Note that this probably isn't true on systems that have a namei cache, which usually holds
	      everything except ``..'').  The optional N is an integer that specifies the maximum number of ``..''  segments to use -- paths  that
	      would  use  more than this use the absolute path name (from the root) instead.  If the ``-u'' flag is given without a value, ``-u1''
	      is assumed.

       -s     If the ``-s'' flag is used, then fastrm will perform the unlinks from one directory -- that is when a group of files in  one  direc-
	      tory  appear  in	the  input consecutively -- in the order that the files appear in the directory from which they are to be removed.
	      The intent of this flag is that on systems that have a per-process directory cache, finding files in the directory should be faster.
	      It  can  have smaller benefits on other systems.	The optional M is an integer that specifies the number of files that must be going
	      to be removed from one directory before the files will be ordered.  If the ``-s'' flag is given without a value, ``-s5'' is assumed.
	      When  the  directory reordering is in use fastrm will avoid attempting to unlink files that it can't see in the directory, which can
	      speed it appreciably when many of the file names have already been removed.

       -c     The ``-c'' flag may be given to instruct fastrm when it should chdir(2).	If the number of files to be unlinked from a directory	is
	      at  least  I then fastrm will chdir and unlink the files from in the directory.  Otherwise it will build a path relative to its cur-
	      rent directory.  If ``-c'' is given without the optional integer I then ``-c1'' is assumed, which will cause fastrm  to  always  use
	      chdir.  If ``-c'' is not used at all, then ``-c3'' is assumed.  Use ``-c0'' to prevent fastrm from ever using chdir(2).

       -a -r  There  are  also	``-a''	and  ``-r''  options, which do nothing at all, except allow you to say ``fastrm -usa'' ``fastrm -ussr'' or
	      ``fastrm -user''.  These happen to often be convenient sets of options to use.

EXIT STATUS

       Fastrm exits with a status of zero if there were no problems, or one if something went wrong.  Attempting to remove a file  that  does  not
       exist  is not considered a problem.  If the program exits with a non-zero status, it is probably a good idea to feed the list of files into
       an ``xargs rm'' pipeline.

HISTORY

       This is revision 1.3, dated 1996/10/29.

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