osx man page for srm

SRM(1)							      General Commands Manual							    SRM(1)

NAME
       srm - securely remove files or directories

SYNOPSIS
       srm [OPTION]... FILE...

DESCRIPTION
       srm removes each specified file by overwriting, renaming, and truncating it before unlinking. This prevents other people from undeleting or
       recovering any information about the file from the command line.

       srm, like every program that uses the getopt function to parse its arguments, lets you use the -- option to  indicate  that  all  following
       arguments are non-options.  To remove a file called '-f' in the current directory, you could type either "srm -- -f" or "srm ./-f".

OPTIONS
       -d, --directory
	      ignored (for compatibility with rm(1))

       -f, --force
	      ignore nonexistent files, never prompt

       -i, --interactive
	      prompt before any removal

       -r, -R, --recursive
	      remove the contents of directories recursively

       -s, --simple
	      only overwrite with a single pass of random data

       -m, --medium
	      overwrite the file with 7 US DoD compliant passes (0xF6, 0x00, 0xFF, random, 0x00, 0xFF, random)

       -z, --zero
	      after overwriting, zero blocks used by file

       -n, --nounlink
	      overwrite file, but do not rename or unlink it

       -v, --verbose
	      explain what is being done

       --help display this help and exit

       --version
	      output version information and exit

NOTES
       srm can not remove write protected files owned by another user, regardless of the permissions on the directory containing the file.

       The -s option overrides the -m option, if both are present.  If neither is specified, the 35-pass Gutmann algorithm is used.

       Development  and  discussion  of  srm  is  carried  out	at  <http://sourceforge.net/project/?group_id=3297>,  which is also accessible via
       <http://srm.sourceforge.net>.

SEE ALSO
       rm(1)

Mac OS X							 20 September 2004							    SRM(1)