RMDIR(P)						     POSIX Programmer's Manual							  RMDIR(P)

NAME

       rmdir - remove directories

SYNOPSIS

       rmdir [-p] dir...

DESCRIPTION

       The rmdir utility shall remove the directory entry specified by each dir operand.

       For  each  dir  operand, the rmdir utility shall perform actions equivalent to the rmdir() function called with the dir operand as its only
       argument.

       Directories shall be processed in the order specified. If a directory and a subdirectory of that directory are specified in a single  invo-
       cation  of  the rmdir utility, the application shall specify the subdirectory before the parent directory so that the parent directory will
       be empty when the rmdir utility tries to remove it.

OPTIONS

       The rmdir utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.

       The following option shall be supported:

       -p     Remove all directories in a pathname. For each dir operand:

	       1. The directory entry it names shall be removed.

	       2. If the dir operand includes more than one pathname component, effects equivalent to the following command shall occur:

		  rmdir -p $(dirname dir)

OPERANDS

       The following operand shall be supported:

       dir    A pathname of an empty directory to be removed.

STDIN

       Not used.

INPUT FILES

       None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       The following environment variables shall affect the execution of rmdir:

       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_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).

       LC_MESSAGES
	      Determine the locale 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

       The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES

       None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

       None.

EXIT STATUS

       The following exit values shall be returned:

	0     Each directory entry specified by a dir operand was removed successfully.

       >0     An error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

       Default.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

       The definition of an empty directory is one that contains, at most, directory entries for dot and dot-dot.

EXAMPLES

       If a directory a in the current directory is empty except it contains a directory b and a/b is empty except it contains a directory c:

	      rmdir -p a/b/c

       removes all three directories.

RATIONALE

       On historical System V systems, the -p option also caused a message to be written to the standard output. The message indicated whether the
       whole path was removed or whether part of the path remained for some reason. The STDERR section requires this diagnostic  when  the  entire
       path specified by a dir operand is not removed, but does not allow the status message reporting success to be written as a diagnostic.

       The  rmdir utility on System V also included a -s option that suppressed the informational message output by the -p option. This option has
       been omitted because the informational message is not specified by this volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       None.

SEE ALSO

       rm , 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								  RMDIR(P)