RMDIR(1) BSD Reference Manual RMDIR(1)
rmdir - remove directories
rmdir [-p] directory [...]
The rmdir utility removes the directory entry specified by each directory argument, provided it is empty. Arguments are processed in the order given. In order to remove both a parent directory and a subdirectory of that parent, the subdirectory must be specified first so the parent directory is empty when rmdir tries to remove it. The options are as follows: -p Each directory argument is treated as a pathname of which all components will be removed, if they are empty, starting with the last most component. (See rm(1) for fully non-discriminant recur- sive removal.) The rmdir utility exits with one of the following values: 0 Each directory argument referred to an empty directory and was removed successfully. >0 An error occurred.
$ rmdir foobar Remove the directory foobar if it is empty. $ rmdir -p cow/horse/monkey Remove all directories up to and including cow, stopping at the first non-empty directory (if any).
rm(1), rmdir(2)
The rmdir utility is expected to be IEEE Std 1003.2 ("POSIX.2") compati- ble.
A rmdir command appeared in Version 1 AT&T UNIX. MirBSD #10-current May 31, 1993 1