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.1‐2017, 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.1‐2017, 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.1‐2017.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       None.

SEE ALSO

       rm

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Chapter 8,  Environment  Variables,  Section  12.2,  Utility
       Syntax Guidelines

       The System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2017, remove(), rmdir(), unlink()

COPYRIGHT

       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard
       for Information  Technology  --  Portable  Operating  System  Interface  (POSIX),  The  Open  Group  Base
       Specifications  Issue  7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
       Engineers, Inc and The Open Group.  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.opengroup.org/unix/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 .