CertiGuide to A+ (A+ 4 Real)  9  Chapter 5: The Linux Operating System       9  Basic Concepts and Procedures for Creating, Viewing and Editing Files and Directories            9  Common Commands

mv - Move (rename) Files 1 rmdir - Remove Empty Directories

Again rm has an equivalent, the command del (delete) in Windows or DOS. As described rm can delete files or directories and their contents.

The notation is:

rm [options] filename

When the command is used with no options, the file will be unquestionably deleted. The -I option causes rm to execute in the interactive mode giving a prompt to confirm that the delete should occur. If filename is actually the name of a directory the delete will not occur unless the -r (recursive) option is used.

One must be particularly careful using this command with Meta characters or at least be sure to use the -i option, so that if the match of file names is different than one expects, the command can be terminated or at least told not to delete the files. Notice that:

rm *

is particularly dangerous since this will delete every file in the current working directory except for hidden files. If one has administrative or super user privileges forms of this command can be devastating.

rm /*

run as root would delete everything from all mounted file systems.

mv - Move (rename) Files 1 rmdir - Remove Empty Directories