RM(1) | General Commands Manual | RM(1) |
rm
— remove
directory entries
rm |
[-f | -i ]
[-dPRrvWx ] file ... |
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
-f
-f
option overrides any previous
-i
options.-i
-i
option overrides any previous
-f
options.-P
-R
-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
-R
.-v
rm
to be verbose, showing files as they are
processed.-W
-x
The rm
utility removes symbolic links, not
the files referenced by the links.
It is an error to attempt to remove the files ``.'' and ``..''.
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.
rm
uses
getopt(3) standard argument
processing. Removing filenames that begin with a dash (e.g.,
-file) in the current directory which might otherwise
be taken as option flags to rm
can be accomplished
as follows:
rm -- -file
or
rm ./-file
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.
Also, historical BSD implementations prompted on the standard output, not the standard error output.
rmdir(1), undelete(2), unlink(2), fts(3), getopt(3), symlink(7)
The rm
utility is expected to be
IEEE Std 1003.2 (“POSIX.2”)
compatible. The -v
and -x
options are extensions.
The -P
option attempts to
conform to U.S. DoD 5220-22.M, "National Industrial Security Program
Operating Manual" ("NISPOM") as updated by Change 2 and the
July 23, 2003 "Clearing & Sanitization Matrix". However,
unlike earlier revisions of NISPOM, the 2003 matrix imposes requirements
which make it clear that the standard does not and can not apply to the
erasure of individual files, in particular requirements relating to spare
sector management for an entire magnetic disk.
Because these
requirements are not met, the -P
option does
not conform to the standard.
An rm
utility appeared in
Version 1 AT&T UNIX.
The -P
option assumes that the underlying
file system is a fixed-block file system. FFS is a fixed-block file system,
LFS is not. In addition, only regular files are overwritten, other types of
files are not. Recent research indicates that as many as 35 overwrite passes
with carefully chosen data patterns may be necessary to actually prevent
recovery of data from a magnetic disk. Thus the -P
option is likely both insufficient for its design purpose and far too costly
for default operation. However, it will at least prevent the recovery of
data from FFS volumes with
fsdb(8).
August 12, 2016 | NetBSD 10.99 |