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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 .