In this article, we are going to see Linux rm command with examples. rm remove files or directories.
Note: Once file(s) or directories removed using rm or rm -rf cannot be recovered after. Be cautious.
Syntax:
rm [OPTION]... [FILE]...
Options: These are available at the bottom of the article.
1. Files in the current directory.
[root@master test]# ls abc.sql adduser.sh logins.dat tested victory ab.txt login.dat script.sh tt.txt
2. To remove one file at a time.
[root@master test]# rm abc.sql rm: remove regular empty file 'abc.sql'? yes
3. To remove more than one file:
[root@master test]# rm tt.txt ab.txt rm: remove regular empty file 'tt.txt'? yes rm: remove regular empty file 'ab.txt'? yes
4. remove file forcibly
rm -f login.dat
5. Remove a directory which is not empty.
Try to remove the directory using rm.
[root@master test]# rm tested/ rm: cannot remove 'tested/': Is a directory
Solution is we have to use -r (recursive) and f options with rm command.
[root@master test]# rm -rf tested/
Options
-f, –force
ignore nonexistent files and arguments, 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[=all]
do not remove ‘/’ (default); with ‘all’, reject any command line argument on a separate device from its par‐
ent
-r, -R, –recursive
remove directories and their contents recursively
-d, –dir
remove empty directories