Last updated on February 10, 2018
In order to remove, delete or unlink files in Unix/Linux operating system we need to use the rm command.
Syntax :
rm [OPTION]... file or directory
To delete file we simple write command like this :
sudo rm file_name.txt (if are in the same directory)
or
sudo rm /var/www/html/file_name.txt
if you want to see a warning message before deleting file use -i option as shown below
sudo rm -i file_name.txt
if you want to delete folders, its sub-folders and files recursively use -r option as shown below
sudo rm -r folder_name
if you want to remove an empty directory use rmdir command as shown below
sudo rmdir folder_name
sometimes you may want to delete all empty directories, to achieve this we need to use the combination of two commands (find and rm).
below command will find and delete all empty files
sudo find /path/to/dir -empty -type f -delete
here f indicates files
below command will find and delete or remove all empty folders from the given path
find /path/to/dir -empty -type d -delete
here d indicates directories or folders
For more information, see the rm command man page by typing the following command:
sudo man rm
That’s it.
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