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rm (short for remove) is a basic command on Unix and Unix-like operating systems used to remove objects such as computer files, directories and symbolic links from file systems and also special files such as device nodes, pipes and sockets, similar to the del command in MS-DOS, OS/2, and Microsoft Windows.
rm: Filesystem Mandatory Remove directory entries Version 1 AT&T UNIX rmdel: SCCS Optional (XSI) Remove a delta from an SCCS file PWB UNIX rmdir: Filesystem Mandatory Remove directories, if they are empty. Version 1 AT&T UNIX sact: SCCS Optional (XSI) Print current SCCS file-editing activity System III sccs: SCCS: Optional (XSI)
will first remove baz/, then bar/ and finally foo/ thus removing the entire directory tree specified in the command argument. rmdir will not remove a directory if it is not empty in UNIX. The rm command will remove a directory and all its contents recursively. For example:
rm: Removes (deletes) files, directories, device nodes and symbolic links rmdir: Removes empty directories shred: Overwrites a file to hide its contents, and optionally deletes it sync: Flushes file system buffers touch: Changes file timestamps; creates file truncate: Shrink or extend the size of a file to the specified size vdir: Is exactly ...
This page was last edited on 24 January 2019, at 19:33 (UTC).; Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License; additional terms may apply.
In Linux, if the script was executed by a regular user, the shell would attempt to execute the command rm -rf / as a regular user, and the command would fail. However, if the script was executed by the root user, then the command would likely succeed and the filesystem would be erased.
The rm (delete file) command removes the link itself, not the target file. Likewise, the mv command moves or renames the link, not the target. The cp command has options that allow either the symbolic link or the target to be copied. Commands which read or write file contents will access the contents of the target file.
JP Software command-line processors provide user-configurable colorization of file and directory names in directory listings based on their file extension and/or attributes through an optionally defined %COLORDIR% environment variable. For the Unix/Linux shells, this is a feature of the ls command and the terminal.