The rm tool deletes files, and directories if specified. Because it involves data loss by definition, shell script programmers should be very careful with this command:
$ ls file1 file2 file3 $ rm file1 file2 $ ls file3
Note that by default, rm does not remove directories:
$ mkdir mydir $ rm mydir rm: cannot remove 'mydir': Is a directory
You can force this with the standard -R or -r option, but it's safer to use rmdir. This is because rmdir will refuse to delete a directory if it still has files in it; it only deletes empty directories:
$ mkdir test1 test2 $ touch test1/file test2/file $ rm -r test1 $ rmdir test2 rmdir: failed to remove 'test2': Directory not empty
We recommend you avoid the -R or -r flag where ...
