rmdir(1) [hpux man page]
rmdir(1) General Commands Manual rmdir(1) NAME
rmdir - remove directories SYNOPSIS
dir ... DESCRIPTION
removes the directory entry for each dir operand that refers to an empty directory. Directories are removed in the order specified. Consequently, if a directory and a subdirectory of that directory are both specified as arguments, the subdirectory must be specified before the parent directory so that the parent directory will be empty when tries to remove it. Removal of a directory requires write and search (execute) permission in its parent directory, but no permissions on the directory itself; but if the sticky bit is set on the parent directory, only the owner of the directory, the owner of the parent directory, or a user having appropriate privileges can remove the directory. Options recognizes the following options: Force each directory to be removed without prompting for confirmation, regardless of the presence of the option. This option also suppresses diagnostic messages regarding non-exis- tent operands. This option does not suppress any diagnostic messages other than those regarding non-existent operands. To suppress all error message and interactive prompts, the option should be used while redirecting the standard error output to This option ignores any previous occurrence of the option. Write a prompt to the standard error output requesting confirmation before removing each directory. This option ignores any previous occurrence of the option. Path removal. If, after removing a directory with more than one pathname component, the parent directory of that directory is now empty, removes the empty parent directory. This continues until encounters a non-empty parent directory, or until all components of the original pathname have been removed. When used in conjunction with the option, asks whether to remove each directory component of a path. 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 dir 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 multi-byte character code sets are supported. DIAGNOSTICS
Generally self-explanatory. Note that the option does not suppress all diagnostic messages. EXAMPLES
To remove directories with a prompt for verification: directories To remove as much as possible of a path, type: SEE ALSO
rm(1), rmdir(2), stat(2). STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
rmdir: SVID2, XPG2, XPG3, XPG4 rmdir(1)
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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)