1RMDIR(1P)                  POSIX Programmer's Manual                 RMDIR(1P)
2
3
4

PROLOG

6       This  manual  page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The Linux
7       implementation of this interface may differ (consult the  corresponding
8       Linux  manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may
9       not be implemented on Linux.
10

NAME

12       rmdir — remove directories
13

SYNOPSIS

15       rmdir [-p] dir...
16

DESCRIPTION

18       The rmdir utility shall remove the directory entry  specified  by  each
19       dir operand.
20
21       For  each  dir operand, the rmdir utility shall perform actions equiva‐
22       lent to the rmdir() function called with the dir operand  as  its  only
23       argument.
24
25       Directories  shall  be processed in the order specified. If a directory
26       and a subdirectory of that directory are specified in a single  invoca‐
27       tion  of the rmdir utility, the application shall specify the subdirec‐
28       tory before the parent directory so that the parent directory  will  be
29       empty when the rmdir utility tries to remove it.
30

OPTIONS

32       The  rmdir  utility  shall  conform  to  the Base Definitions volume of
33       POSIX.1‐2017, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.
34
35       The following option shall be supported:
36
37       -p        Remove all directories in a pathname. For each dir operand:
38
39                  1. The directory entry it names shall be removed.
40
41                  2. If the dir operand includes more than one pathname compo‐
42                     nent,  effects  equivalent to the following command shall
43                     occur:
44
45
46                         rmdir -p $(dirname dir)
47

OPERANDS

49       The following operand shall be supported:
50
51       dir       A pathname of an empty directory to be removed.
52

STDIN

54       Not used.
55

INPUT FILES

57       None.
58

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

60       The following environment  variables  shall  affect  the  execution  of
61       rmdir:
62
63       LANG      Provide  a  default  value for the internationalization vari‐
64                 ables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions  vol‐
65                 ume  of POSIX.1‐2017, Section 8.2, Internationalization Vari‐
66                 ables for the precedence  of  internationalization  variables
67                 used to determine the values of locale categories.)
68
69       LC_ALL    If  set  to  a non-empty string value, override the values of
70                 all the other internationalization variables.
71
72       LC_CTYPE  Determine the locale for the interpretation of  sequences  of
73                 bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as
74                 opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments).
75
76       LC_MESSAGES
77                 Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format
78                 and  contents  of  diagnostic  messages  written  to standard
79                 error.
80
81       NLSPATH   Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing
82                 of LC_MESSAGES.
83

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

85       Default.
86

STDOUT

88       Not used.
89

STDERR

91       The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
92

OUTPUT FILES

94       None.
95

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

97       None.
98

EXIT STATUS

100       The following exit values shall be returned:
101
102        0    Each  directory entry specified by a dir operand was removed suc‐
103             cessfully.
104
105       >0    An error occurred.
106

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

108       Default.
109
110       The following sections are informative.
111

APPLICATION USAGE

113       The definition of an empty directory is one  that  contains,  at  most,
114       directory entries for dot and dot-dot.
115

EXAMPLES

117       If a directory a in the current directory is empty except it contains a
118       directory b and a/b is empty except it contains a directory c:
119
120
121           rmdir -p a/b/c
122
123       removes all three directories.
124

RATIONALE

126       On historical System V systems, the -p option also caused a message  to
127       be  written  to  the standard output. The message indicated whether the
128       whole path was removed or whether part of the path  remained  for  some
129       reason.  The  STDERR  section  requires this diagnostic when the entire
130       path specified by a dir operand is not removed, but does not allow  the
131       status message reporting success to be written as a diagnostic.
132
133       The rmdir utility on System V also included a -s option that suppressed
134       the informational message output by the -p option. This option has been
135       omitted because the informational message is not specified by this vol‐
136       ume of POSIX.1‐2017.
137

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

139       None.
140

SEE ALSO

142       rm
143
144       The Base Definitions volume of  POSIX.1‐2017,  Chapter  8,  Environment
145       Variables, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines
146
147       The  System  Interfaces  volume  of  POSIX.1‐2017,  remove(),  rmdir(),
148       unlink()
149
151       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in  electronic  form
152       from  IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information Technology -- Por‐
153       table Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base  Specifi‐
154       cations  Issue  7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C) 2018 by the Institute of
155       Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group.   In  the
156       event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
157       The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group  Standard
158       is  the  referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online
159       at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .
160
161       Any typographical or formatting errors that appear  in  this  page  are
162       most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source
163       files to man page format. To report such errors,  see  https://www.ker
164       nel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .
165
166
167
168IEEE/The Open Group                  2017                            RMDIR(1P)
Impressum