| Lesson 4 | Removing directories quickly |
| Objective | Use the rm command to remove directories. |
Removing Directories quickly in Unix
You use the rmdir command to remove directories that are empty. However, if the directory contains many subdirectories, you must use repeated combinations of rm * and rmdir to do the job. In addition, rm * does not remove hidden files. To do that,
you must use rm with a pattern like .* instead. A more efficient way to remove a directory and all of its contents, including subdirectories, is to use rm with the -r option, as follows: % rm -r directory
Once you delete a directory hierarchy, it is gone forever, unless there is a backup copy.
If you want rm to prompt you for confirmation before deleting files use the -i option.
For an even more efficient approach, use rm -rf.
The
-f option forces deletion of files to which you lack write access as long as you own those files. Normally,
rm -r prompts you for confirmation before deleting files that are read-only or read/execute-only. For example, suppose a directory contains a file
named
myfile, with an access mode of
r--r--r--
.
If you attempt a
rm -r on this directory, you will get the following prompt:
Override protection 444 for myfile? You either can answer yes each time you get this prompt, or you can use
rm -rf and suppress the prompt.
In the next lesson, the creation of a symbolic link using the
ln -s command will be discussed.
Copying Removing Directories Exercise
