Another handy thing you can do is to remove directories using rmdir. Think of removing directories as trimming branches on a tree. That is, you can’t be sitting on the branch you want to trim off. You have to sit on the next closest branch; otherwise, you’ll fall to the ground along with the branch you trim off. Ouch! Similarly, when you remove a directory, you must not be located in the directory you want to remove.
You must remove a directory’s contents (all subdirectories and files) before you remove the directory itself. In doing so, you can verify what you’re removing and avoid accidentally removing important stuff. In the following steps (illustrated in Code Listing 2.10), we’ll show you how to remove a directory’s contents, then remove the directory itself.
$ cd /home/ejr/Yourdirectory $ ls -la total 7 drwxrwxr-x 2 ejr users 1024 Jun 29 20:59 . drwxrwx–- 8 ejr users 1024 Jun 29 20:59 .. -rw-rw-r– 1 ejr users 1475 Jun 29 20:59 cancelled.project.notes -rw-rw-r– 1 ejr users 2876 Jun 29 20:59 outdated.contact.info $ rm * $ cd .. $ rmdir Yourdirectory $ ls Newdirectory all.programs.txt newer.programs short.fortunes Projects files newest.programs temp Xrootenv.0 fortunes newstuff touching all.programs local.programs.txt schedule $ |
✓ Tips
You can remove multiple directories at one time. Assuming you’re starting with empty directories, just list them like this: rmdir Yourdirectory Yourotherdirectory OtherDirectory
As an alternative to rmdir, you can remove a directory and all of its contents at once using rm with the -r flag; for example, rm -r Directoryname. Be careful, though! This method automatically removes the directory and everything in it, so you won’t have the opportunity to examine everything you remove beforehand. If you’re getting asked for confirmation before deleting each file and you’re really, absolutely, positively, completely sure that you’re doing the right thing, use rm –rf Directoryname to force immediate deletion.
If you’re getting comfortable with long command strings, you can specify commands with a complete directory path as in ls /home/ejr/DirectorytoGo or rm /home/ejr/DirectorytoGo/*. This technique is particularly good if you want to be absolutely sure that you’re deleting the right directory, and not a directory with the same name in a different place on the system.
1. | cd /home/ejr/Yourdirectory To begin, change to that directory by typing cd plus the name of the directory you want to remove. |
2. | ls -a List all (-a) of the files, including any hidden files that might be present, in the directory, and make sure you don’t need any of them. If you see only . and .. (which indicate the current directory and its parent directory), you can skip ahead to step 4. |
3. | Do one or both of these:
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4. | cd .. Use the change directory command again to move up one level, to the parent of the directory that you want to remove. |
5. | rmdir Yourdirectory There it goes—wave goodbye to the directory! See Code Listing 2.10 for the whole sequence. |
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