PROLOG

       This  manual  page  is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The Linux implementation of
       this interface may differ (consult the corresponding Linux  manual  page  for  details  of
       Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME

       rmdir — remove directories

SYNOPSIS

       rmdir [−p] dir...

DESCRIPTION

       The rmdir utility shall remove the directory entry specified by each dir operand.

       For  each  dir  operand, the rmdir utility shall perform actions equivalent to the rmdir()
       function called with the dir operand as its only argument.

       Directories shall be processed in the order specified. If a directory and  a  subdirectory
       of  that  directory  are  specified  in  a  single  invocation  of  the rmdir utility, the
       application shall specify the subdirectory before the parent directory so that the  parent
       directory will be empty when the rmdir utility tries to remove it.

OPTIONS

       The  rmdir  utility  shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Section
       12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.

       The following option shall be supported:

       −p        Remove all directories in a pathname. For each dir operand:

                  1. The directory entry it names shall be removed.

                  2. If the dir operand  includes  more  than  one  pathname  component,  effects
                     equivalent to the following command shall occur:

                         rmdir −p $(dirname dir)

OPERANDS

       The following operand shall be supported:

       dir       A pathname of an empty directory to be removed.

STDIN

       Not used.

INPUT FILES

       None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       The following environment variables shall affect the execution of rmdir:

       LANG      Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or
                 null.  (See  the  Base  Definitions  volume  of   POSIX.1‐2008,   Section   8.2,
                 Internationalization   Variables  for  the  precedence  of  internationalization
                 variables used to determine the values of locale categories.)

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

       LC_CTYPE  Determine  the  locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data
                 as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to multi-byte  characters  in
                 arguments).

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

       NLSPATH   Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

       Default.

STDOUT

       Not used.

STDERR

       The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES

       None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

       None.

EXIT STATUS

       The following exit values shall be returned:

        0    Each directory entry specified by a dir operand was removed successfully.

       >0    An error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

       Default.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

       The definition of an empty directory is one that contains, at most, directory entries  for
       dot and dot-dot.

EXAMPLES

       If  a  directory  a in the current directory is empty except it contains a directory b and
       a/b is empty except it contains a directory c:

           rmdir −p a/b/c

       removes all three directories.

RATIONALE

       On historical System V systems, the −p option also caused a message to be written  to  the
       standard  output. The message indicated whether the whole path was removed or whether part
       of the path remained for some reason. The STDERR section requires this diagnostic when the
       entire  path  specified  by  a  dir  operand is not removed, but does not allow the status
       message reporting success to be written as a diagnostic.

       The rmdir utility on System V also included a −s option that suppressed the  informational
       message  output  by  the −p option. This option has been omitted because the informational
       message is not specified by this volume of POSIX.1‐2008.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       None.

SEE ALSO

       rm

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Chapter  8,  Environment  Variables,  Section
       12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines

       The System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2008, remove(), rmdir(), unlink()

COPYRIGHT

       Portions  of  this  text  are  reprinted  and  reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std
       1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information Technology  --  Portable  Operating  System
       Interface  (POSIX),  The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the
       Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc  and  The  Open  Group.   (This  is
       POSIX.1-2008  with  the  2013  Technical  Corrigendum  1  applied.)  In  the  event of any
       discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open  Group  Standard,  the
       original  IEEE  and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard
       can be obtained online at http://www.unix.org/online.html .

       Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most  likely  to  have
       been  introduced  during  the conversion of the source files to man page format. To report
       such errors, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .