May 31, 1993 RMDIR 1

### NAME

rmdir - remove directories

### SYNOPSIS

rmdir [-p] directory ...

### DESCRIPTION

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 following option is available:

-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 recursive removal.)

### EXIT STATUS

The rmdir utility exits with one of the following values:

```0`
  Each directory entry specified by a dir operand referred to an empty directory and was removed successfully.

```>0`
  An error occurred.

### SEE ALSO

rm(1)

### STANDARDS

The rmdir utility is expected to be IEEE Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2'') compatible.