Exercise 14: Removing a File (rm)
In this exercise you learn how to remove (delete) a file using the rm command.
Do This
Linux
$ cd temp
$ ls
uncool.txt iamcool.txt neat.txt something thefourthfile.txt
$ rm uncool.txt
$ ls
iamcool.txt neat.txt something thefourthfile.txt
$ rm iamcool.txt neat.txt thefourthfile.txt
$ ls
something
$ cp -r something newplace
$
$ rm something/awesome.txt
$ rmdir something
$ rm -rf newplace
$ ls
$
Windows
> cd temp
> ls
Directory: C:\Users\zed\temp
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
d---- 12/22/2011 4:52 PM newplace
d---- 12/22/2011 4:52 PM something
-a--- 12/22/2011 4:49 PM 0 iamcool.txt
-a--- 12/22/2011 4:49 PM 0 neat.txt
-a--- 12/22/2011 4:49 PM 0 thefourthfile.txt
-a--- 12/22/2011 4:49 PM 0 uncool.txt
> rm uncool.txt
> ls
Directory: C:\Users\zed\temp
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
d---- 12/22/2011 4:52 PM newplace
d---- 12/22/2011 4:52 PM something
-a--- 12/22/2011 4:49 PM 0 iamcool.txt
-a--- 12/22/2011 4:49 PM 0 neat.txt
-a--- 12/22/2011 4:49 PM 0 thefourthfile.txt
> rm iamcool.txt
> rm neat.txt
> rm thefourthfile.txt
> ls
Directory: C:\Users\zed\temp
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
d---- 12/22/2011 4:52 PM newplace
d---- 12/22/2011 4:52 PM something
> cp -r something newplace
> rm something/awesome.txt
> rmdir something
> rm -r newplace
> ls
>
You Learned This
Here we clean up the files from the last exercise. Remember when I had you try to rmdir on a directory with something in it? Well, that failed because you can't remove a directory with files in it. To do that you have to remove the file, or recursively delete all of its contents. That's what you did at the end of this.
Do More
- Clean up everything in temp from all the exercises so far.
- Write in your notebook to be careful when running recursive remove on files.