Man Pages - Manpage for rm

Posted May 26th, 2004 in Man Pages (Updated June 15th, 2004)

man page for the unix linux bsd command rm

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
OPTIONS
AUTHOR
REPORTING BUGS
COPYRIGHT
SEE ALSO

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 a file is unwritable, the standard input is a tty, and the -f or --force option is not given, rm prompts the user for whether to remove the file. If the response does not begin with `y' or `Y', the file is skipped.

OPTIONS

Remove (unlink) the FILE(s).

-d, --directory

unlink FILE, even if it is a non-empty directory (super-user only)

-f, --force

ignore nonexistent files, never prompt

-i, --interactive

prompt before any removal

-r, -R, --recursive

remove the contents of directories recursively

-v, --verbose

explain what is being done

--help display this help and exit

--version

output version information and exit

To remove a file whose name starts with a `-', for example `-foo', use one of these commands:

rm.td/rm -- -foo

rm.td/rm ./-foo

Note that if you use rm to remove a file, it is usually possible to recover the contents of that file. If you want more assurance that the contents are truly unrecoverable, consider using shred.