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 IEEE Std 1003.1-2001,
       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  IEEE Std 1003.1-2001,  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 IEEE Std 1003.1-2001.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       None.

SEE ALSO

       rm , the System Interfaces volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, remove(), rmdir(), unlink()

COPYRIGHT

       Portions of this text are reprinted and  reproduced  in  electronic  form  from  IEEE  Std
       1003.1,  2003  Edition,  Standard  for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System
       Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003  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 .