rm, unlink -- remove directory entries
+ +The rm utility attempts to remove the non-directory type files specified on the command line. +If the permissions of the file do not permit writing, and the standard input device is a terminal, +the user is prompted (on the standard error output) for confirmation.
+ +The options are as follows:
+ +-d
+ +Attempt to remove directories as well as other types of files.
+ +-f
+ +Attempt to remove the files without prompting for confirmation, regardless of the file's permissions. +If the file does not exist, do not display a diagnostic message or modify the exit status to reflect an error. +The -f option overrides any -i options.
+ +-i
+ +Request confirmation before attempting to remove each file, regardless of the file's permissions, or whether or not the standard input device is a terminal. +The -i option overrides any previous -f options.
+ +-P
+ +Overwrite regular files before deleting them. +Files are overwritten three times, first with the byte pattern 0xff, then 0x00, and then 0xff again, before they are deleted.
+ +-R
+ +Attempt to remove the file hierarchy rooted in each file argument. +The -R option implies the -d option. If the -i option is specified, the user is prompted for confirmation before each directory's contents are processed (as well as before the attempt is made to remove the directory). +If the user does not respond affirmatively, the file hierarchy rooted in that directory is skipped.
+ +-r
+ +Equivalent to -R.
+ + +-v
+ +Be verbose when deleting files, showing them as they are removed.
+ + +-W
+ +Attempt to undelete the named files. +Currently, this option can only be used to recover files covered by whiteouts.
+ +The rm utility removes symbolic links, not the files referenced by the links.
+ +It is an error to attempt to remove the files ``.'' or ``..''.
+ +When the utility is called as unlink, only one argument, which must not be a directory, may be supplied. +No options may be supplied in this simple mode of operation, which performs an unlink(2) operation on the passed argument.
+ +The rm utility exits 0 if all of the named files or file hierarchies were removed, or if the -f option was specified and all of the existing files or file hierarchies were removed. +If an error occurs, rm exits with a value >0.
+ +The rm command uses getopt(3) to parse its arguments, which allows it to accept the `--' option which will cause it to stop processing flag options at that point. +This will allow the removal of file names that begin with a dash (`-'). For example:
+The same behavior can be obtained by using an absolute or relative path reference. For example:
+rmdir(1), undelete(2), unlink(2), fts(3), getopt(3), symlink(7)
+ +The -P option assumes that the underlying file system is a fixed-block file system. +In addition, only regular files are overwritten, other types of files are not.
+ +The rm utility differs from historical implementations in that the -f option only masks attempts to remove non-existent files instead of masking a large variety of errors. +The -v option is non-standard and its use in scripts is not recommended.
+ +Also, historical BSD implementations prompted on the standard output, not the standard error output.
+ +The rm command is almost IEEE Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2'') compatible, except that POSIX requires rm to act like rmdir(1) when the file specified is a directory. +This implementation requires the -d option if such behavior is desired. This follows the historical behavior of rm with respect to directories.
+ +The simplified unlink command conforms to Version 2 of the Single UNIX Specification (``SUSv2'').
+ +A rm command appeared in Version 1 AT&T UNIX.