| RM(1) | General Commands Manual | RM(1) | 
rm —
| rm | [ -f|-i]
      [-dPRrvWx] file ... | 
rm utility attempts to remove the non-directory type
  files specified on the command line. If the permissions of the file do not
  permit writing, and the standard input device is a terminal, the user is
  prompted (on the standard error output) for confirmation.
The options are as follows:
-d-f-f option overrides any previous
      -i options.-i-i option overrides any previous
      -f options.-P-R-R option implies the -d
      option. If the -i option is specified, the user is
      prompted for confirmation before each directory's contents are processed
      (as well as before the attempt is made to remove the directory). If the
      user does not respond affirmatively, the file hierarchy rooted in that
      directory is skipped.-r-R.-vrm to be verbose, showing files as they are
      processed.-W-xThe rm utility removes symbolic links, not
    the files referenced by the links.
It is an error to attempt to remove the files ``.'' and ``..''.
rm utility exits 0 if all of the named files or file
  hierarchies were removed, or if the -f option was
  specified and all of the existing files or file hierarchies were removed. If
  an error occurs, rm exits with a value >0.
rm uses
  getopt(3) standard argument
  processing. Removing filenames that begin with a dash (e.g.,
  -file) in the current directory which might otherwise be
  taken as option flags to rm can be accomplished as
  follows:
rm -- -file
or
rm ./-file
rm utility differs from historical implementations
  in that the -f option only masks attempts to remove
  non-existent files instead of masking a large variety of errors.
Also, historical BSD implementations prompted on the standard output, not the standard error output.
rm utility is expected to be IEEE
  Std 1003.2 (“POSIX.2”) compatible. The
  -v and -x options are
  extensions.
The -P option attempts to conform to U.S.
    DoD 5220-22.M, "National Industrial Security Program Operating
    Manual" ("NISPOM") as updated by Change 2 and the July 23,
    2003 "Clearing & Sanitization Matrix". However, unlike earlier
    revisions of NISPOM, the 2003 matrix imposes requirements which make it
    clear that the standard does not and can not apply to the erasure of
    individual files, in particular requirements relating to spare sector
    management for an entire magnetic disk. Because these
    requirements are not met, the -P
    option does not conform to the standard.
rm utility appeared in
  Version 1 AT&T UNIX.
-P option assumes that the underlying file system is
  a fixed-block file system. FFS is a fixed-block file system, LFS is not. In
  addition, only regular files are overwritten, other types of files are not.
  Recent research indicates that as many as 35 overwrite passes with carefully
  chosen data patterns may be necessary to actually prevent recovery of data
  from a magnetic disk. Thus the -P option is likely
  both insufficient for its design purpose and far too costly for default
  operation. However, it will at least prevent the recovery of data from FFS
  volumes with fsdb(8).
| August 12, 2016 | NetBSD 9.4 |