Section: User Commands (1)Updated: February 2011Local indexUp
NAME
rm - remove files or directories
SYNOPSIS
rm
[OPTION]... FILE...
DESCRIPTION
This manual page
documents the GNU version of
rm.
rm
removes each specified file. By default, it does not remove
directories.
If the -I or --interactive=once option is given,
and there are more than three files or the -r, -R,
or --recursive are given, then
rm
prompts the user for whether to proceed with the entire operation. If
the response is not affirmative, the entire command is aborted.
Otherwise, if a file is unwritable, standard input is a terminal, and
the -f or --force option is not given, or the
-i or --interactive=always option is given,
rm
prompts the user for whether to remove the file. If the response is
not affirmative, the file is skipped.
OPTIONS
Remove (unlink) the FILE(s).
-f, --force
ignore nonexistent files, never prompt
-i
prompt before every removal
-I
prompt once before removing more than three files, or
when removing recursively. Less intrusive than -i,
while still giving protection against most mistakes
--interactive[=WHEN]
prompt according to WHEN: never, once (-I), or
always (-i). Without WHEN, prompt always
--one-file-system
when removing a hierarchy recursively, skip any
directory that is on a file system different from
that of the corresponding command line argument
--no-preserve-root
do not treat `/' specially
--preserve-root
do not remove `/' (default)
-r, -R, --recursive
remove directories and their contents recursively
-v, --verbose
explain what is being done
--help
display this help and exit
--version
output version information and exit
By default, rm does not remove directories. Use the --recursive (-r or -R)
option to remove each listed directory, too, along with all of its contents.
To remove a file whose name starts with a `-', for example `-foo',
use one of these commands:
rm ---foo
rm ./-foo
Note that if you use rm to remove a file, it might be possible to recover
some of its contents, given sufficient expertise and/or time. For greater
assurance that the contents are truly unrecoverable, consider using shred.
AUTHOR
Written by Paul Rubin, David MacKenzie, Richard M. Stallman,
and Jim Meyering.
