In another words, when a file is deleted, its contents remain unchanged, but the file name is no longer appended to it. Data is not deleted; instead, it only loses access after being unlinked from the rm. Be careful when deleting files! Unlike dumping something into the Windows Recycle Bin, there’s no way to undo a file or directory. The rm command is used to delete items from a UNIX-like file system, including files, directories, symbolic links, and more. In cases where an object may have multiple references, rm removes references to that object from the file system. It does not exclude directories by default. You must be very careful when using the rm command, as once files are deleted they cannot be recovered. This operation usually operates invisibly. We have mentioned below the steps to use Rm Command in Linux.
Steps to Use Rm Command in Linux
Use Rm Command
Step 1: Get startedyou might want to use –help to learn more about rm and its usage:
Remove a single file
Step 1: You may remove a single file using the following command:
remove multiple files
Step 1: For removing multiple filesyou just need to add the file names, separated by a space: Step 2: If you want remove all files with the same extension, you can use 🇧🇷 as the placeholder. For example, to remove all “.txt” files: Step 3: similarly to remove all files (with extension) in a directory, you can use:
remove a directory
Step 1: To remove an empty directoryYou can use the -d option or the rmdir command🇧🇷 Step 2: For director with files you should use the -r (recursive) option to remove a directory. This will also remove all files inside the folder. rmdir Step 3: Likewise, you can remove allincluding subfolders and the files within a directory:
Get a warning before removing a file
Step 1: If you want to check everything before removing any files, it’s better to use the -i option🇧🇷 This option shows a confirmation prompt before removing any files from the system. Step 2: After executing the above command, the system will ask you to press Y or N to confirm your selection. Step 3: If you are deleting more than three files with the rm commandplease use the -I option rather than:
Get message after removing files
Step 1: With the -v optionthe rm command shows what is being done by the command: rm -I *.txt Step 2: You can use both the -ve -i option to remove files interactively:
Forcefully remove file
Step 1: The -f option overrides any minor protection of a write-protected file to forcibly remove it. Step 2: You can combine this with the -r option to forcibly remove a directory and its subfolders.
Final Words
We hope you enjoy our article on how to use the Rm command on Linux. An operating system or kernel made available under an open source license is called LINUX. Your feature set is very similar to UNIX. The Linux operating system kernel is software that handles basic tasks, including enabling hardware and software to communicate. The rm command removes entries for a particular file, group of files, or selective set of files from a list of directories. When using the rm command, user confirmation, read permission and write permission are not required before a file is deleted.
