RMDIR(1) BSD General Commands Manual RMDIR(1)NAME
rmdir -- remove directories
SYNOPSIS
rmdir [-p] directory ...
DESCRIPTION
The rmdir utility removes the directory entry specified by each directory argument, provided it is empty.
Arguments are processed in the order given. In order to remove both a parent directory and a subdirectory of that parent, the subdirectory
must be specified first so the parent directory is empty when rmdir tries to remove it.
The following option is available:
-p Each directory argument is treated as a pathname of which all components will be removed, if they are empty, starting with the last
most component. (See rm(1) for fully non-discriminant recursive removal.)
The rmdir utility exits with one of the following values:
0 Each directory entry specified by a dir operand referred to an empty directory and was removed successfully.
>0 An error occurred.
SEE ALSO rm(1)STANDARDS
The rmdir command is expected to be IEEE Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2'') compatible.
HISTORY
A rmdir command appeared in Version 1 AT&T UNIX.
BSD May 31, 1993 BSD
Check Out this Related Man Page
rmdir(1) General Commands Manual rmdir(1)NAME
rmdir - Removes a directory
SYNOPSIS
rmdir [-p] [-s] directory...
STANDARDS
Interfaces documented on this reference page conform to industry standards as follows:
rmdir: XCU5.0
Refer to the standards(5) reference page for more information about industry standards and associated tags.
OPTIONS
Removes all directories in a path name. For each directory argument, the directory entry it names is removed.
If the directory argument includes more than one path name component, effects equivalent to the following command occur: rmdir -p
$(dirname directory)
That is, rmdir recursively removes each directory in the path name.
OPERANDS
The path name of an empty directory to be removed.
DESCRIPTION
The rmdir command removes a directory from the system. The directory must be empty before you can remove it, and you must have write per-
mission in its parent directory. Use the ls -al command to see if a directory is empty.
If a directory and a subdirectory of that directory are specified in a single invocation of rmdir, the subdirectory must be specified
before the parent directory so that the parent directory will be empty when rmdir tries to remove it.
RESTRICTIONS
A directory must be empty before you can remove it, and you must have write permission in its parent directory. If the -p option is used,
all directories in the path must be empty except for the directory being recursively removed.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned: Each directory specified by directory operand was successfully removed. An error occurred.
EXAMPLES
To empty and remove a directory, enter: rm mydir/* mydir/.* rmdir mydir
This removes the contents of mydir, then removes the empty directory. The rm command displays an error message about trying to
remove the directories . (dot) and .. (dot dot), and then rmdir removes them.
Note that rm mydir/* mydir/.* first removes files with names that do not begin with a (dot), then those with names that do begin
with a (dot). You may not realize that the directory contains file names that begin with a (dot) because the ls command does not
normally list them unless you use the -a option to see the files whose names begin with a (dot). To remove all of the directories
in the path name a/b/c, enter: rmdir -p a/b/c
Use a command like this one if directory a in the current directory is empty except that it contains a directory b and a/b is empty
except that it contains a directory c.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables affect the execution of rmdir: Provides a default value for the internationalization variables that are
unset or null. If LANG is unset or null, the corresponding value from the default locale is used. If any of the internationalization vari-
ables contain an invalid setting, the utility behaves as if none of the variables had been defined. If set to a non-empty string value,
overrides the values of all the other internationalization variables. Determines the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes
of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to multibyte characters in arguments). Determines the locale for the for-
mat and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error. Determines the location of message catalogues for the processing of
LC_MESSAGES.
SEE ALSO
Commands: mkdir(1), ls(1), rm(1)
Functions: rmdir(2), unlink(2), remove(3)
Standards: standards(5)rmdir(1)