PKG_DELETE(1)						    BSD General Commands Manual 					     PKG_DELETE(1)

NAME

     pkg_delete -- a utility for deleting previously installed software package distributions

SYNOPSIS

     pkg_delete [-ADFfkNnORrVv] [-K pkg_dbdir] [-P destdir] [-p prefix] pkg-name ...

DESCRIPTION

     The pkg_delete command is used to delete packages that have been previously installed with the pkg_add(1) command.  The given packages are
     sorted, so that the dependencies needed by a package are deleted after the package.  Before any action is executed, pkg_delete checks for
     packages that are marked as preserved or have depending packages left.  If the -k flag is given, preserved packages are skipped and not
     removed.  Unless the -f flag is given, pkg_delete stops on the first error.

WARNING

     Since the pkg_delete command may execute scripts or programs provided by a package file, your system may be susceptible to ``Trojan horses''
     or other subtle attacks from miscreants who create dangerous package files.

     You are advised to verify the competence and identity of those who provide installable package files.  For extra protection, examine all the
     package control files in the package record directory <PKG_DBDIR>/<pkg-name>/).  Pay particular attention to any +INSTALL or +DEINSTALL
     files, and inspect the +CONTENTS file for @cwd, @mode (check for setuid), @dirrm, @exec, and @unexec directives, and/or use the pkg_info(1)
     command to examine the installed package control files.

OPTIONS

     The following command line options are supported:

     pkg-name ...
	     The named packages are deinstalled, wildcards can be used, see pkg_info(1).  If no version is given, the one currently installed will
	     be removed.  If the -F flag is given, one or more (absolute) filenames may be specified and the package database will be consulted
	     for the package to which the given file belongs.  These packages are then deinstalled.

     -A      Recursively remove all automatically installed packages that were needed by the given packages and are no longer required.  Does not
	     remove manually installed packages; see also the -R flag.

     -D      If a deinstallation script exists for a given package, do not execute it.

     -F      Any pkg-name given will be interpreted as pathname which is subsequently transformed in a (real) package name via the package data-
	     base.  That way, packages can be deleted by giving a filename instead of the package-name.

     -f      Force removal of the package, even if a dependency is recorded or the deinstall script fails.  This might break the package database;
	     see pkg_admin(1) on how to repair it.

     -ff     Force removal of the package, even if the package is marked as a preserved package.  Note that this is a dangerous operation.  See
	     also the -k option.

     -K pkg_dbdir
	     Override the value of the PKG_DBDIR configuration option with the value pkg_dbdir.

     -k      Silently skip all packages that are marked as preserved.

     -N      Remove the package's registration and its entries from the package database, but leave the files installed.  Don't run any deinstall
	     scripts or @unexec lines either.

     -n      Don't actually deinstall a package, just report the steps that would be taken.

     -O      Only delete the package's entries from the package database; do not touch the package or its files itself.

     -P destdir
	     Prefix all file and directory names with destdir.	For packages without install scripts this has the same behavior as using
	     chroot(8).

     -p prefix
	     Set prefix as the directory in which to delete files from any installed packages which do not explicitly set theirs.  For most pack-
	     ages, the prefix will be set automatically to the installed location by pkg_add(1).

     -R      Recursively remove all packages that were needed by the given packages and are no longer required.  This option overrides the -A
	     flag.

     -r      Recursively remove all packages that require one of the packages given.

     -V      Print version number and exit.

     -v      Turn on verbose output.

TECHNICAL DETAILS

     pkg_delete does pretty much what it says.	It examines installed package records in <PKG_DBDIR>/<pkg-name>, deletes the package contents, and
     finally removes the package records.

     If a package is required by other installed packages, pkg_delete will list those dependent packages and refuse to delete the package (unless
     the -f option is given).

     If a package has been marked as a preserved package, it will not be able to be deleted (unless more than one occurrence of the -f option is
     given).

     If a filename is given instead of a package name, the package of which the given file belongs to can be deleted if the -F flag is given.  The
     filename needs to be absolute, see the output produced by the pkg_info(1) -aF command.

     If a deinstall script exists for the package, it is executed before and after any files are removed.  It is this script's responsibility to
     clean up any additional messy details around the package's installation, since all pkg_delete knows how to do is delete the files created in
     the original distribution.  The deinstall script is called as:
	   deinstall <pkg-name> VIEW-DEINSTALL
     before removing the package from a view, and as:
	   deinstall <pkg-name> DEINSTALL
     before deleting all files and as:
	   deinstall <pkg-name> POST-DEINSTALL
     after deleting them.  Passing the keywords VIEW-DEINSTALL, DEINSTALL, and POST-DEINSTALL lets you potentially write only one program/script
     that handles all aspects of installation and deletion.

     All scripts are called with the environment variable PKG_PREFIX set to the installation prefix (see the -p option above).	This allows a
     package author to write a script that reliably performs some action on the directory where the package is installed, even if the user might
     have changed it by specifying the -p option when running pkg_delete or pkg_add(1).  The scripts are also called with the PKG_METADATA_DIR
     environment variable set to the location of the +* meta-data files, and with the PKG_REFCOUNT_DBDIR environment variable set to the location
     of the package reference counts database directory.  If the -P flag was given to pkg_delete, PKG_DESTDIR will be set to destdir.

ENVIRONMENT

     See pkg_install.conf(5) for options, that can also be specified using the environment.

SEE ALSO

     pkg_add(1), pkg_admin(1), pkg_create(1), pkg_info(1), pkg_install.conf(5) pkgsrc(7)

AUTHORS

     Jordan Hubbard
	     most of the work
     John Kohl
	     refined it for NetBSD
     Hubert Feyrer
	     NetBSD wildcard dependency processing, pkgdb, recursive "down" delete, etc.
     Joerg Sonnenberger
	     Rewrote most of the code to compute correct order of deinstallation and to improve error handling.

BSD
								 January 20, 2010							       BSD