rmdir(1)                                                           rmdir(1)




 NAME    [Toc]    [Back]
      rmdir - remove directories

 SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]
      rmdir [-f|-i] [-p] dir ...

 DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]
      rmdir removes the directory entry for each dir operand that refers to
      an empty directory.

      Directories are removed in the order specified.  Consequently, if a
      directory and a subdirectory of that directory are both specified as
      arguments, the subdirectory must be specified before the parent
      directory so that the parent directory will be empty when rmdir tries
      to remove it.  Removal of a directory requires write and search
      (execute) permission in its parent directory, but no permissions on
      the directory itself; but if the sticky bit is set on the parent
      directory, only the owner of the directory, the owner of the parent
      directory, or a user having appropriate privileges can remove the
      directory.

    Options    [Toc]    [Back]
      rmdir recognizes the following options:

           -f   Force each directory to be removed without prompting for
                confirmation, regardless of the presence of the -i option.
                This option also suppresses diagnostic messages regarding
                non-existent operands.

                This option does not suppress any diagnostic messages other
                than those regarding non-existent operands.  To suppress all
                error message and interactive prompts, the -f option should
                be used while redirecting the standard error output to
                /dev/null.

                This option ignores any previous occurrence of the -i
                option.

           -i   Write a prompt to the standard error output requesting
                confirmation before removing each directory.

                This option ignores any previous occurrence of the -f
                option.

           -p   Path removal.  If, after removing a directory with more than
                one pathname component, the parent directory of that
                directory is now empty, rmdir removes the empty parent
                directory.  This continues until rmdir encounters a nonempty
 parent directory, or until all components of the
                original pathname have been removed.




 Hewlett-Packard Company            - 1 -   HP-UX 11i Version 2: August 2003






 rmdir(1)                                                           rmdir(1)




                When used in conjunction with the -i option, rmdir asks
                whether to remove each directory component of a path.

 EXTERNAL INFLUENCES    [Toc]    [Back]
    Environment Variables
      LANG provides a default value for the internationalization variables
      that are unset or null. If LANG is unset or null, the default value of
      "C" (see lang(5)) is used. If any of the internationalization
      variables contains an invalid setting, rmdir will behave as if all
      internationalization variables are set to "C".  See environ(5).

      LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, overrides the values of all
      the other internationalization variables.

      LC_CTYPE determines the interpretation of dir names as single and/or
      multi-byte characters, the classification of characters as printable,
      and the characters matched by character class expressions in regular
      expressions.

      LC_MESSAGES determines the locale that should be used to affect the
      format and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error
      and informative messages written to standard output.

      NLSPATH determines the location of message catalogues for the
      processing of LC_MESSAGES.

    International Code Set Support    [Toc]    [Back]
      Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported.

 DIAGNOSTICS    [Toc]    [Back]
      Generally self-explanatory.  Note that the -f option does not suppress
      all diagnostic messages.

 EXAMPLES    [Toc]    [Back]
      To remove directories with a prompt for verification:

           rmdir -i directories

      To remove as much as possible of a path, type:

           rmdir -p component1/component2/dir

 SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]
      rm(1), rmdir(2), stat(2).

 STANDARDS CONFORMANCE    [Toc]    [Back]
      rmdir: SVID2, XPG2, XPG3, XPG4


 Hewlett-Packard Company            - 2 -   HP-UX 11i Version 2: August 2003